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Starmer Wins: How Should the Left Respond?

If the pre-covid era already seems like years ago, the Labour leadership contest might as well have launched in a different millennium. Empires rose and unravelled, newborn babes grew old and grey-bearded, a killer pandemic swept the globe and the foundations of neoliberalism itself collapsed into dust in the time it took for this interminable competition to deliver a result anyone could have predicted from day one. Keir Starmer’s victory was resounding, driven by a simple pitch: a watered-down version of the McDonnell policy programme, but delivered by an electable haircut with a knighthood instead of a kindly jam grandad. There are good reasons for the left to take an extremely sceptical attitude towards Starmer’s leadership. Though Sir Keir clearly isn’t a bloodthirsty partisan of the hard-right, his coalition of support includes figures who are - and that support will come with strings attached. The seasoned faction-fighters of Progress and Labour First played a significant role in the mortal wounding of Corbynism, and they won’t hesitate to deploy the same media-courting shithousery against Starmer if he doesn’t expunge all traces of democratic socialism from the party. Open Selections would ensure deliberate wrecking carries career-ending consequences: politely asking MPs to behave is unlikely to cut it. Likewise, the new leader’s claim to a monopoly on ‘electability’ doesn’t quite seem watertight. Whilst it’s certainly possible to imagine him besting Johnson at the ballot-box, it’s difficult to find examples of cautious technocrats sweeping to victory in the current political landscape. A close look at who is actually winning and losing elections now, rather than in the long-vanished formative years of Gen X broadsheet columnists, would suggest a sharp-suited establishmentarian is exactly the type of candidate a reactionary pseudo-populist like Boris Johnson would wish to run against. Above all, it’s the mode of leadership Starmer represents that should concern us. In a strange way, his victory mirrors Johnson’s general election win. With Boris pledging to ‘Get Brexit Done’ and Keir to ‘end factionalism’, both were carried to office on the promise of making the messy and unpleasant and necessary business of political conflict go away. Starmer promises a return to technocratic managerial competence, which isn’t necessarily a problem in itself - parties need competent technocrats - but indicates the return of the MP as the primary political actor and Parliament as the sole terrain upon which that action takes place, relegating the membership to a supporting role rather than the driver of policy and strategy. Radical change, however, can’t happen without a mass-movement that can exert leverage over the state - through strikes, direct action and street-by-street organising, or the credible threat of them. Fighting only within the halls of power means fighting where capital has an overwhelming advantage. Is it time, then, for socialists to leave the Labour Party? No one’s support for any political project should be unconditional; the moment it is, you’ve given your permission to be ignored. But talk of walking out is hugely premature. Ironically, the Labour right’s irrepressible pugnacity may provide opportunities to rebuild: in Spain, the Socialist Party’s centrist leader Pedro Sanchez was ultimately forced to seek support from his party's left, partly because the itchy trigger-fingers to his right deemed him insufficiently willing to cooperate with the conservative Partido Popular and launched a coup. Starmer too could find himself reliant on the left if unreconstructed Blairists in the PLP are tempted to overplay their hand and try to destabilise him. That might, or might not, happen. But regardless: consider the nature of the work ahead of us in the wake of December’s election defeat. Owing to the strength of our analysis and our programmatic response to the civilisational crises we face, the left’s electoral popularity leapt far ahead of its actual organisational strength over the last five years. Union density is catastrophically thin, we're some way off building a comprehensive alternative media, and the level of class struggle (as measured in days lost to strike action) is at an historic low. Our reach has exceeded our grasp. Our task now is class recomposition: forging strong links between working-class people in our communities and helping them understand our interests can only be advanced through collective struggle. We must organise and rebuild institutional strength - workplace by workplace, street by street - so that when our moment comes again, we have the power to deliver on our promises. It will be the work of years, we will need all the help we can get, and Labour is still a useful institution for meeting, engaging, organising and campaigning with other socialists. We should avoid putting all our eggs in the basket of electoralism, but offer critical support to the new leadership when necessary to defend policies we agree with. History isn’t ultimately shaped by leaders, but by the endlessly churning conflict between those who own and those who serve. Change is built from the bottom-up: we shouldn't expect anything from Keir Starmer, but we don't need anything from him either.

Defective masks were sent to Toronto long-term care home where residents died of COVID-19

TORONTO -- Defective masks being recalled by the City of Toronto were sent to at least three long-term care homes, including one dealing with a deadly COVID-19 outbreak. The city said on Tuesday it is recalling hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of surgical masks after reports of “ripping and tearing” in the product. “The City of Toronto discovered yesterday that a recently-purchased order of more than $200,000 worth of surgical masks do not meet the specifications the city requires for such masks and took immediate action, recalling these masks,” the city said in a news release. The order of 4,000 boxes containing 50 masks per box was received on March 28, of which 62,500 masks (or 1,252 boxes) were distributed to the city’s long-term care homes. “After reports of ripping and tearing, further inspection of the masks determined that the masks ordered did not meet the city’s standard and specifications,” the city said, adding that Toronto’s occupational health safety staff has been contacted “The city is investigating to determine how many employees in the city’s long-term care homes were caring for a patient while wearing these masks, and if there was possible exposure to COVID-19.” A spokesperson for the city confirmed that the masks were sent to Seven Oaks long-term care home, Kipling Acres long-term care home and Lakeshore Lodge long-term care home. Eight patients who resided at Seven Oaks long-term care home died of the virus, officials confirmed last week. There have been 15 deaths in long-term care homes in Toronto. The city says that the masks that were manufactured in China are being returned and that the vendor has committed to a full refund. "We know the issue of fraudulent and poor quality personal protective equipment is an issue around the world," Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg told reporters at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. "We have been fortunate, if you will, [that] to my knowledge this is the only shipment of personal protective equipment for which we’ve had concerns to date." In the meantime, the city says it is retrieving its stockpile of masks as a “stop-gap measure” until new masks can be ordered. Pegg said that the poor-quality masks represented about 50 per cent of the city's surgical mask inventory. "With the loss of the masks, we are estimating right now with the demand levels we've seen at the start of the week, [that] about a two to three week supply [is] remaining." The city said that the loss of this inventory makes for a "significant shortfall" of surgical masks for the city and that the Ontario government has been contacted to help expedite a new order. The city says that as a result of the recall, it is undertaking a quality control review of its supply chain. “All future orders of personal protective equipment will be subject to heightened verification to ensure the products it receives meet the specifications ordered." Pegg said it's upsetting that the city has to take the additional checks. "It's actually sad that we have to take those additional steps, but, unfortunately with the global supply chain being what it is, we just have no choice but to go through the additional work and to add the additional steps to undertake additional physical inspections and to undertake additional verifications that under normal circumstances would not be required," he said. "We are doing that on the basis of taking every precaution reasonable and everything available to us to ensure our supply of personal protective equipment is of high quality and that was implemented as of last night and will continue."

Mexico urges end to harassment of health workers in pandemic

Mexico urges end to harassment of health workers in pandemic While tributes to courageous medical personnel putting themselves in the virus' path circle the globe, Mexico and some other places have seen disturbing aggression born of fear MEXICO CITY -- They are the first line of defense against the COVID-19 pandemic, but in parts of Mexico, doctors, nurses and other health workers are being harassed to the point that federal authorities have pleaded for Mexicans to show solidarity. While tributes to courageous medical personnel putting themselves in the virus' path circle the globe, Mexico and some other places have seen disturbing aggression born of fear. Recently, a hospital in Guadalajara — Mexico's second-largest city — were told to wear civilian clothes to and from work rather than their scrubs or uniforms because some public buses refused to allow them to board. Other medical personnel have reported attacks and this week someone threw flammable liquid on the doors of a new hospital under construction in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon. “There have been cases, you could say isolated, but all outrageous,” Mexican undersecretary of health Hugo López-Gatell said Monday night. “Fear produces irrational reactions, reactions that make no sense, have no foundation and have no justification when they have to do with respecting the dignity and the physical integrity of people.” It also comes as the Mexican government has embarked in a massive recruiting drive to bolster the thin ranks of its public health system before the virus hits with its full force. “It's even more outrageous when it concerns the health professionals that we all depend on in this moment, because they are on the front lines facing this epidemic,” López-Gatell said. “The declaration is of indignation and a demand that this not occur because it is completely punishable, sanctionable and won't be allowed.” Mexico has nearly 2,800 confirmed COVID-19 infections and 141 deaths. For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. Authorities were moved to speak out publicly because the incidents have continued spreading. Harassment of medical personnel in the western city of Guadalajara became a daily occurrence in recent weeks. Edith Mujica Chávez, president of Jalisco state's Interinstitutional Commission of Nurses, denounced the attacks including physical aggression, verbal harassment and even having bleach solutions thrown at nurses. In a letter to Gov. Enrique Alfaro, her organization asked for help and public condemnation of the attacks. “We all know we are potentially at risk in public health, but violence can never be tolerated, even though we are afraid of catching coronavirus,” the letter said. “We have to maintain our mental health and share information so that they know nurses are not enemies of society.” A group of cab drivers calling themselves “Code Red” in that city banded together to offer free or reduced cost rides to health workers. But the attacks haven't been limited to that city. A nurse in the city of Merida, Yucatan wrote on Facebook of a recent attack. “While I was waiting for my ride, two people on a motorcycle threw an egg at my uniform," wrote Rafael Ramírez, who works at a public health clinic in Merida. “I didn't think these kinds of things happened in our city. I felt powerless not being able to do anything while they rode on laughing.” “We don't deserve it,” he wrote. "Am I afraid to go to work? Of course I am.” In the central state of Morelos late last month, residents of the rural community of Axochiapan protested outside their local hospital, which they heard might be used to treat coronavirus patients. When the hospital director came out to say nothing had been decided yet, a man shouted that they would burn the hospital down. The hospital attacked this week in Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon had been turned over to the military to receive COVID-19 patients. “To threaten the physical safety of medical personnel or to affect the functioning and operation of the hospital infrastructure dedicated in this moment to the health emergency puts at risk the capacity of response that the population requires,”said Víctor Hugo Borja, director of medical services for Mexico's public health system. Mexico is not the only place seeing such harassment of medical personnel. In Argentina, each night residents go out to their balconies or windows to applaud those working in the health system. But in one incident, a group of residents in an apartment building advised a doctor living there that she not be in the building's common spaces or risk legal consequences. They told her to “not touch door handles, stairway railings and to not be on the terrace.” In another case, a pharmacist found a sign on his building's elevator telling him he should leave the building to not spread the virus to his neighbors. He reported it to authorities. Victoria Donda, head of Argentina's National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, said doctors and nurses were among an “enormous quantity of cases of discrimination” they are receiving related to the pandemic. “We can't applaud at 9 at night and discriminate at 9 in the morning,” she said. “We have to inform ourselves well so that the emotions that burst forth are not irrational in this emergency and we don't let fear overtake us.”

Sony Added PS Now April 2020 Games, Spider-Man on PS Now Along With Two More AAA Titles! Here Is How You Can Play It On PC » NG News

Sony has gone beyond anything with its PlayStation Now Service. Today, the company Added Spider-Man on PS Now platform along with two more latest AAA titles. This means you can play this game on PC which is the best news you can hear today in the gaming industry. PS Now April Games Sony added Spider-Man, Just Cause 4, and Golf Club 2019 to its PS Now platform as the April installment. The games will be available on the platform until July 7, 2020. The Japanese giant is going on a steady path of ruling the cloud gaming industry along with the console department. The last few months have been very good for PlayStation Now as Sony kept adding some great AAA and PlayStation Exclusive titles to the service. However, this move with Spider-Man was epic. This means a lot for the gaming community as many PC gamers were eagerly waiting to Play Spider-Man on PS Now. Sony for sure will get a lot of PC subscribers for PS Now after this announcement. The company is giving clear signs, that it is rich with exclusive games and has a huge potential to attract users from both the Console and PC sides. If you do not know about PS Now, it is a cloud gaming service available for both PS4 and PC where you can play 700 Plus PS4, PS3 and PS2 titles by paying a monthly fee. Below is the subscription price list, please click on the photo to get redirected to the PlayStation Now official page in case you want to buy the subscription. We Need Your Help In these uncertain times, we rely only on the income coming from the advertisements shown on the website which makes it very important that we have enough views to be able to earn for a living. If you like our work, please share the link to this article with your family and friends. Every share matters.

Illinois records 73 new coronavirus deaths, highest spike since pandemic began

Illinois officials on Tuesday said another 73 people have died from the coronavirus, marking the highest single-day death count the state has experienced since the outbreak began. There were also another 1,287 confirmed cases, with the virus spreading to 77 of the state’s 102 counties. There have been 380 total deaths in Illinois due to COVID-19 among 13,549 diagnoses overall. That includes a member of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office who tested positive for the coronavirus after being in isolation since March 26, the governor said. Pritzker has not been tested for coronavirus, and he said he did not have direct contact with the employee, who is recovering well. But the state’s health care system is still within its capacity, including for ventilators and intensive care unit beds, Pritzker said. About 43% of Illinois hospital beds were available Tuesday, with 3,680 patients with coronavirus or suspected cases being hospitalized. Of 2,709 total intensive care unit beds in the state, 1,166 are being used by COVID-19 patients, with 35% of ICU beds still available. Pritzker said 57% of the state’s total ventilators are available, a drop from last week when 68% were available. Pritzker — who has been very public about his push for the federal government to send the state more medical supplies — thanked them for sending 600 ventilators, which includes 300 specifically for Chicago, where just 24.7% of ICU beds are available. Asked about President Donald Trump’s comments suggesting Pritzker is happy with the federal response on private calls but telling the press a different story, the governor said: “I am happy when they make promises and then deliver upon those promises. I am unhappy when they do not deliver on promises or when lies are spoken.” Pritzker also thanked California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sent 100 ventilators to Illinois overnight. “It is truly incredible to work with elected officials across the nation who are providing true leadership,” Pritzker said. “Once we are past our peak, Illinois will pay in full. We will pay it forward in any way that we can, including passing along those ventilators to the next hotspot in the nation in any that we may be able to spare.” The administration on Monday said there were 54 more people placed on ventilators due to COVID-19 from Friday to Monday. While Pritzker has said he is using a number of projections to anticipate when the state will reach its peak, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has projected Illinois will see its peak death rate on April 12. The state is grappling with an outbreak at the Cook County Jail, where as of Tuesday morning 355 confirmed cases have been traced back to the jail, which also was identified by the New York Times as a key hotspot in the outbreak. Travel within the U.S. was determined to be responsible for 187 positive COVID-19 cases, and travel overseas was the third leading point of origin, responsible for 178 cases. And at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, the Illinois Dept. of Corrections says 95 inmates have tested positive. Two have already died. Pritzker said more than 60 inmates have been released from the Illinois Dept. of Juvenile Justice. And 1,100 low-risk inmates have been released from the Illinois Dept. of Corrections. Pritzker has signed an executive order to allow the department to allow medically vulnerable inmates out of prison temporarily for as long as the governor’s disaster proclamation is in effect. The governor was asked if he had any regrets about his response to the pandemic. “Every day I ask myself about each decision that I make. Is there another choice here? Or did I miss something?” Pritzker said. “...I wish I knew about this in January when the intelligence agencies seemed to know about it. And we would have begun building ventilators ourselves.”

Ted Cruz Blasts Dems for Treating Americans Like We Live in a Police State

Sen. Ted Cruz had had enough. The Texas Republican – like much of the country – apparently has been watching the increasingly extreme steps being taken in some areas to keep residents from violating “social distancing” rules laid down by increasingly authoritarian governments. But a story out of Pennsylvania apparently pushed him over the line. This is absurd. To Dem politicians (and it seems to be only Dems doing this, eg Wolf in PA, DeBlasio in NYC, Cooper in NC), protect public safety, but WE DON’T LIVE IN A POLICE STATE. Resist authoritarianism & don’t abuse power. Driving a car alone is not a public health threat. https://t.co/tTNszTGNgA — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 5, 2020 TRENDING: NFL Player Says He 'Inadvertently' Supported a Cause He Didn't 'Fully Comprehend' by Wearing 'Antwon Rose Jr.' on Helmet Cruz was reacting to the story of a 19-year-old woman who, according to The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, was pulled over by Pennsylvania state troopers on March 29 for allegedly having a taillight out and then fined for failing to obey Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfe’s “stay-at-home” order. It’s a violation that could mean a $200 fine, though the woman, identified as Anita Schaffer, told The Patriot-News she plans to fight it in court. But it was also the kind of story that helps crystalize the frustrations of American citizens watching the coronavirus crisis play out against a backdrop of confusing rules that seem — as in the case of the Pennsylvania woman — dangerously arbitrary. And they also, as the senator noted, seem to be taking place in areas governed by Democrats. Do you think state and local authorities are abusing their powers during the coronavirus crisis? Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use You're logged in to Facebook. Click here to log out. 95% (8295 Votes) 5% (465 Votes) “This is absurd,” Cruz wrote. “To Dem politicians (and it seems to be only Dems doing this, eg Wolf in PA, DeBlasio in NYC, Cooper in NC), protect public safety, but WE DON’T LIVE IN A POLICE STATE. Resist authoritarianism & don’t abuse power. Driving a car alone is not a public health threat.” No, driving alone is not a public health threat. What is a threat to the American idea of equal justice, though, is the fact that there is precious little consistency to how any “stay-at-home” order is enforced. And, for many, the potential for abuse is unacceptably high. Cruz’s tweet got plenty of mockery — as the meteoric career of former Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke proved, Cruz is particularly unpopular among those on the left. (O’Rourke’s sole claim to national attention was that he was the Democrat who came within 3 percentage points of defeating Cruz in the 2018 midterms. The failure of his pathetic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination showed how much support O’Rourke actually generated on his own.) But there were quite a few Twitter users who agreed with Cruz’s point. RELATED: Ted Cruz Kicks Off Antifa Hearing with Video of Group's Violent Reality This is the future the democrats want for us. — 𝖕ɐɯ 𝖘ı 𝖕𝖑ɹ𝖔ʍ ǝɥʇ/hī-ˈdräk-sē-\ˈklōr-ə-kwēn (@BeatriceofEste) April 5, 2020 Just another example of tyrannical leftists using #coronavirus as an excuse to live out their Police State wet dreams. — Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) April 5, 2020 We are in danger in losing our rights with some of these communists in charge of these blue states Call your governors; mayors, and tell them to STOP — Stephen Szydlik (@SteveSzydlik) April 5, 2020 The biggest problem with the “police state” conditions Americans have witnessed in the coronavirus crisis is the lack of consistency, or even apparent logic, to the enforcement. In the Pennsylvania case, a young woman’s allegedly broken taillight (she and her father told The Patriot-News the light was working when she got home) ended up netting her a fine of at least $200. Meanwhile, the state’s grocery stores, bakeries, laundromats and other “life-sustaining” businesses remain open. In California, a lone paddleboarder was arrested Thursday by Malibu police for violating Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “stay-at-home” order, according to KTLA-TV, while in Oakland, a street party that attracted 450 revelers on Sunday ended up with only three arrests, according to KTVU-TV. In Florida, meanwhile, a pastor was arrested after conducting a church service that violated a “safer at home” ordinance approved by the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group, which includes representatives from the Democratic-majority County Commission, the officially nonpartisan school board, the sheriff’s office and three cities in the county. The pastor’s attorney, Mat Staver, told Fox News that the ordinance his client was arrested under allows a “wide range of commercial operations that are either specifically exempt or exempt if they can comply with a six-foot separation. Yet, if the purpose of your meeting is religious, the county prohibits it with no exception for the six-foot separation.” What it boils down to is, Americans have shown, and continue to show, an admirable degree of compliance with the rules authorities are releasing. Most people probably understand that from the presidency down to the county commission and town council level, the coronavirus crisis is something that hasn’t been dealt with before. No sane person expects perfection in any human endeavor — and in government least of all. But there will come a time when that patience is going to run out — and when the arbitrary implementation of rules is going to stop looking like understandable, if infuriating, mistakes and start looking like the kind of abuse of power conservatives have long suspected is behind the Democratic/progressive agenda. When that time comes, it won’t be just Ted Cruz who’s had enough. And it isn’t going to be just angry tweets that the power abusers are going to have to worry about. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

'He was already on the floor': Family looks for answers after Ontario man shot dead by police

TORONTO -- The family of a 26-year-old Brampton, Ont. man is calling for more mental health training for police officers, after he was stunned with a conducted energy weapon and shot dead by police. The victim, who has been identified by family as D'Andre Campbell, was killed inside his home on Sawston Circle, in the area of Edenbrook Hill Drive and Bovaird Drive, after Peel Regional Police were called to the location around 5:30 p.m. on Monday. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which has taken over the probe, said preliminary information indicates that two officers discharged conducted energy weapons before one of the officers fired his gun multiple times. Campbell's eldest sister, Michelle Campbell, said she is traumatized after witnessing the incident. "He was Tased twice. He was already on the floor," Michelle told CTV News Toronto on Tuesday. She said she was in the basement when she heard commotion and went upstairs to find two police officers in her home. "I was standing right there," Michelle said. "I turned this way, and I turned back, and by the time I turned back, the officer had the gun in his hand. And within seconds, he shot him." Michelle said her brother was holding a knife at the time but did not move towards the officers. According to the family, D'Andre Campbell was the one who called police to the home Monday. They said he had mental health issues and that police have been to the home numerous times in the past, so they should have known they were dealing with a mental health patient. “That’s why I’m saying I’m confused," Dajour Campbell, D'Andre Campbell's brother, said. "They came to the house multiple times. I don’t know why this time they decided to shoot him.” "Every crisis scenario is different," Peel Regional Police Constable Akhil Mooken said in an interview with CTV News Toronto. “One of the challenges we have as front line officers, is that because of how dynamic an incident can be or how quickly we arrive on scene, we don’t necessarily know all available information before entering into that situation. Every call potentially has its unique challenges.” Peel Regional Police said they attend more mental health calls than any other type of call, and that they have nearly 20 partnerships, training courses and initiatives to support officers on the front lines and to help individuals in crisis. "Our officers are constantly getting training on different mental illnesses, and what the best way is for our officers to interact with individuals who are in crisis," Constable Mooken said. But the Campbell family says they want justice. They are calling for the police service to review their mental health initiatives, and improve training for officers. D'Andre was the third of eight siblings, who all lived in the Brampton home with their parents. "He's a fun-loving guy," Campbell's aunt, who did not want to be identified, told CTV News Toronto. "He's not an aggressor, but with someone with a mental illness. Things do happen because they're not able to control their emotions at times." The SIU has designated one subject officer and four witness officers in the case, and has assigned four investigators and two forensic investigators. The SIU is called in whenever police are involved in a death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault. The post-mortem is scheduled for April 8. Anyone with information about the case is being urged to contact the lead investigator at 1-800-787-8529.

Coronavirus: NHS staff with Covid-19 given wrong test results

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Public Health Wales said no one has been harmed as result of the error Some Welsh NHS staff with Covid-19 have been given wrong test results and were told they did not have coronavirus, BBC Wales has learned. They are among a group of ten who have been given incorrect results - including eight from Aneurin Bevan Health Board and two from elsewhere. It is not clear how many of the ten had Covid-19 and were told they did not, or vice versa. The Gwent-based heath board said the staff were contacted "immediately". It happened when a small number of test samples from a batch of 96 were attributed to the wrong patients. Public Health Wales (PHW) said some clinicians who were positive for Covid-19 were told they were negative, and the other way around. PHW said 10 out of 96 members of staff in a testing group were subject to "a recording error" which was picked up "within hours" by quality checking systems. It is not clear where the other two individuals, which are not from Aneurin Bevan Health Board, are from. PHW confirmed that the testing was done in its labs and it was its error. PHW said it contacted all the parties and health boards involved, and established no harm was caused. The Aneurin Bevan Health Board area has seen the highest numbers of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Wales. Frank Atherton, the chief medical officer for Wales, has previously said that the large number of tests carried out there, along with its proximity to London, help to explain why it has become a hotspot for the virus. A spokesman for the health board said: "Since the 14th of March we have undertaken circa 1,600 staff tests. "As part of our checking process, we identified a local transcribing issue with eight test results that led to us giving staff members wrong results." The spokesman said the staff were contacted "immediately", and the health board has undertaken a "detailed review" of all staff tests and "taken action to remove any further risk of transcribing errors". BBC Wales has asked whether any of the staff members given false negatives attended work before being told they were, in fact, positive. In a statement PHW said it followed up the cases "to establish if any harm had occurred due to the incorrect information being communicated to individuals." "It was established that no harm had occurred," it said. "We continue to have complete confidence in the testing process, and the laboratory staff carrying out the testing procedures," PHW added.

Coronavirus: Critics mock Trump’s new press secretary for previously saying the president would stop Covid-19 infecting the US

President Donald Trump's former campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany has been tapped to take over Stephanie Grisham's role as the White House press secretary. The announcement on Tuesday by the White House was met with criticism because Ms McEnany's earlier statements about the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. A video circulated first by CNN's Andrew Kaczynski showing Ms McEnany on Fox Business on 25 February where she heaped praise for the president keeping Covid-19 out of the country. "We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here, and isn't that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?" This 30-second clip does not show the entire context of Ms McEnany's statement, but earlier in the Fox show it was mentioned how Mr Trump shut down travel from China to prevent the spread of the virus. "A Trump campaign spokesman called me to say the comments were solely in context of the travel ban from China to argue Trump wasn't going to let coronavirus come here from China," CNN's Mr Kaczynski reported. At the time, experts estimated thousands of people were infected with the virus in the US. Since her statement, more than 380,000 Americans have tested positive for the novel virus and 12,021 have died. Ms McEnany also tweeted against former Vice President Joe Biden's response to the H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic while in the Obama administration on 13 March. At the time, she said the president's response was better when handling the coronavirus based on numbers. "This happened in America: 60.8 MILLION infected, 274,304 hospitalised, 12,469 died." Loading.... Her numbers come from the CDC, which estimated the number of people who were infected, hospitalised, and died from the virus over a one-year period. "By contrast, President @realDonaldTrump has led, taking unprecedented action to stop the coronavirus & protect Americans," she added. But her comparison has not aged well as the coronavirus death toll is anticipated to surpass the Swine Flu's year-long death toll this week. Another controversial statement that has followed Ms McEnany was she previously claimed President Barack Obama went golfing following Daniel Pearl's beheading. The Wall Street Journal journalist was kidnapped and beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. At the time, Mr Obama was a state senator, not the president. Ms McEnany, 31, graduated from Harvard Law School and has since been a frequent spokesperson for Mr Trump and his campaign on national television. The White House has not detailed if her role as White House press secretary would entail daily press briefings. Ms Grisham, who took the role over Sarah Sanders in June 2019, rarely appeared on television.

Inside China’s victory over coronavirus: Family separations, door sensors – and belly button massages

O n Wednesday, for the first time in more than two months, 11 million people in China’s Wuhan will have the option to step out of their homes and leave the city. The lifting of the lockdown in the place where the global coronavirus pandemic started is a symbolic victory for the Chinese government, coming as new infections and daily death tolls still soar in Europe and the US. Residents in Wuhan, who have been subjected to one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, will not see life return to normal immediately. The Chinese government says travel should be for “necessary” reasons only, and screening will still take place upon arrival in other provinces whether by road, rail or air. But the dismantling of roadblocks from midnight, and the opening up of non-essential businesses, buses and metro services on Wednesday, will be watched closely by virus-hit countries around the world trying to get a sense of what their own exit strategies from coronavirus lockdowns might look like. Wuhan has accounted for 61 per cent of China’s 81,700 reported coronavirus cases, and the trauma of what residents now refer to as the “great calamity” will leave a legacy lasting long after the return to freedom of movement. For Graham*, who along with his parents became infected not long after the city’s outbreak began, the experience has left him determined not just to get out of Hubei province, but to leave China altogether. A photographer who was used to roaming around the city with his camera, Graham felt his loss of liberty during the lockdown more keenly than most. His parents became ill first, and after the disease spread to the rest of the family they spent seven days at the People’s Hospital in Wuhan, before finally being transferred to one of the city’s many Square Cabin hospitals. These makeshift hospitals were specifically built, at breakneck speed, to house coronavirus patients with mild symptoms. Graham describes how the facilities, staffed mostly by doctors trained in traditional Chinese medicine, encouraged treatments that “didn’t make any sense”, he tells The Independent. Travel resumes as Wuhan lockdown lifted Patients were told to massage the area around their belly button clockwise throughout the day, as the doctor claimed this would help them “release the virus” out of their bodies. “When I asked one of the doctors what would happen if I massage my belly button counter-clockwise, he immediately said that’s the typical reasoning in western medicine,” says Graham. Graham says doctors also taught patients how to “detox” by hitting their elbows and other body parts as hard as they could, for prolonged periods, “to cleanse the virus from their lungs. So throughout the day I could hear the sound of patients hitting their elbows, and many of them had bruised elbows.” During his stay in the facility he also witnessed firsthand the ruthlessly utilitarian approach the Chinese authorities took to disease prevention, “trampling” over individuals’ rights in the process. “Some families were forcefully separated in front of me because they had been assigned to different hospitals based on the severity of their infection,” he recalls. “A guy was begging the authorities at our hospital to let him go see his mother before she passed away. Instead, they handcuffed him to his bed so he couldn’t escape.” The man’s mother later died in a nearby hospital. You have no choice. If you don’t follow orders the police will come and snatch you and put you away Steve Tsang, SOAS university “This pandemic made me realise how extreme the Chinese government can be when they try to take control over the society,” Graham says. Censorship, always a part of everyday life under the Communist Party, has become even more extreme. “Over the last two months, what we can basically do is to praise the government’s efforts in containing the virus and receive relevant information that has already been heavily censored,” he says. The lockdown, Graham says, “helped me understand that as long as I stay in China, I can never enjoy real freedom, and I don’t want my children to have the same life. I think the sensible decision is to leave China, and that’s what I plan to do once the lockdown is over”. Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University in London, says China’s authoritarian one-party system means it can enforce a lockdown in a way that would not be possible in most democratic nations. “You have no choice,” he says. “If you don’t follow orders the police will come and snatch you and put you away." He says that one thing that China appears to have done particularly effectively to curtail its outbreak has been the use of a large number of requisitioned locations to quarantine people who have tested positive or travelled abroad away from other members of their community or family. “That probably significantly reduced the level of transmissions within households, and that is something that I don’t think has been widely copied outside of China,” he said. “It would be very hard to imagine that being mandatory in the United Kingdom, that if you test positive with Covid-19 but do not require hospital treatment, you will be required to go into a quarantined quarters separate from your family for two weeks. It’s very difficult to see that being widely embraced or enforceable in the UK.” With the steady reduction in locally transmitted cases culminating in not a single new coronavirus death being reported on Tuesday for the first time since January, attention has turned in China to preventing new cases being brought in from abroad. Loading.... In Beijing, that has meant ever stricter conditions for anyone arriving in the county or the capital’s province, even as restrictions in places like Wuhan have eased. James Ashcroft, a Chinese language student at Beijing Normal University, returned to the city from London shortly before all entry for foreigners was halted late last month. At the airport, authorities said he would simply have to stay at home, but a week into his quarantine community volunteers installed a motion sensor on his door. The motion sensor, connected to a program on the messaging application WeChat, would send an alert to the neighbourhood association whenever the door was ajar. If he or his housemate opened the door to pick up a food delivery or put the bins out, they would within minutes get a phone call from the police. Ashcroft says he has seen no written policy that explains why the device was put on his door. “It was only communicated verbally to us that this is a thing that they are trying to apply.” He says he felt much more uncomfortable being monitored in this way than if he had just been asked to observe a quarantine normally. “It doesn’t really contribute to a sense of peace and well-being and surety, to just not quite know what’s happening or why. Carl Rappa, 30, came back to the city from the US before the travel regulations came into effect and says he feels comparatively better off in Beijing as the virus has taken hold elsewhere. When he left the US last month, people there couldn’t understand why. “Everyone was like, ‘why are you going back to China? It’s bad there’,” Rappa says. “[We told them] we have lives and jobs there and it’s getting better there.” He quarantined at home with his girlfriend, Michelle – spending two weeks straight without leaving their Beijing apartment. He didn’t have a motion sensor put on his door, but since being back said he has noticed other low-tech – and not always logical – ways that virus prevention is being enforced. New measures are in place like being made to write down personal information when entering buildings, for example, that seem ill-conceived for virus prevention but are widely carried out without question. “Everyone [is] having to sign in, which means [everyone] touching the same pen,” Rappa says. Now that international travel has been stopped, Beijing’s efforts to prevent a second wave of imported cases must focus on returning Chinese nationals. But quarantine measures enforced by community groups and local officials appear to be changing rapidly, leaving people to smooth out any kinks as they go. Even as the Chinese government attempts to restore calm, the inconsistencies have added to the sense of unease. “I just feel like they have many loopholes they need to fix,” He Mao, 24, said after completing his hotel quarantine period last week following his return to Beijing from Cambodia. He says he flew through Guangzhou on his way to the capital, and airport officials seemed not to know whether, given the internal layover, he needed to undergo quarantine at a centralised facility. He was eventually allowed to return home to his apartment, only for community volunteers to turn up hours later and move him to a quarantine hotel. For two weeks mandatory stay at the hotel, He was required to pay 6,000 Chinese yuan (£690). While not thrilled about the cost, he’s made peace with his circumstances but said he wishes he would have been informed about what to expect before he arrived. Part of a first wave of arrivals to the city after the regulation about hotel quarantine went into effect, He said he’s also become a test case for friends in a similar position who are stuck outside the country and considering returning. “Everyone is like, ‘you have to share your story because we are all counting on you. Because we are not sure if we should come back’,” he said. Back in Wuhan, not everyone is as excited about the end of the lockdown as might be expected, in part because of a widespread perception that it could be premature. Graham says he hears reports of new cases still emerging from hospitals and some neighbourhoods, that don’t make the official daily tallies. “The government wants to get people back to work, so they lied about the current situation in Wuhan,” he claims. “The official numbers are definitely fake, and it’s just the matter of how fabricated it is.” Tsang, the China Institute director, says Xi Jinping has created a culture in the Communist Party where “whatever he says is the truth, the whole truth, and nobody would ever dare contradict him”. “Xi said he wanted to reduce the numbers to zero. So if you are a senior official in Wuhan, you think that if you report new cases then you are failing the general secretary.” Aware of this dilemma, the Chinese premier Li Keqiang pleaded with local officials on 23 March that “there must be no concealing or underreporting” of cases. “If the premier of China cannot believe in the official figures, I don’t see why I should believe in the official figures,” Tsang says. Ultimately, Tsang says the propaganda coup of opening up Wuhan “at a time when the lockdown is at its tightest in places like New York” would have been too valuable for the Chinese government to let even a small number of cases derail it. “It doesn’t really matter what the reality on the ground is,” he says. “Unless the situation on the ground is really pretty horrific, I think they will proceed [regardless].” A guy was begging the authorities at our hospital to let him go see his mother before she passed away. Instead, they handcuffed him to his bed so he couldn’t ‘escape’ Graham Even for those who have stayed healthy in Wuhan, the lockdown has had a transformative impact on lives – and not only in ways that have been negative. For some modern Chinese families, life under lockdown offered a rare opportunity to rebuild fraying bonds. Robin* says he was living with friends in an apartment in the city before the outbreak, as the relationship with his parents had soured since he came out as gay several years ago. “With my father being in his seventies, I decided to go home and spend time with them after the government announced the plan to lock down the city,” he says. As life came to a standstill, Robin had to come to terms with life confined to a 75 square metre apartment with his parents. They played cards, watched television or just tried to catch up on things they had missed in the years since they drifted apart. “It was definitely not easy,” Robin tells The Independent. “I had to rediscover the best way to live with them, as we barely had chances like this before the pandemic happened. Instead of arguing with them as I normally would do, I tried to communicate with them. That suddenly helped clear up all the misunderstanding between me and my father.” This rare chance gave Robin new thoughts about life after the lockdown. “I probably won’t have more opportunities like this in the future, so I don’t think I’m in a rush to move back to my apartment after the lockdown is over,” Robin says. “I want to have more time with my parents.”

National Poetry Month Celebrations Go Online

April is National Poetry Month. Even though writers and audiences can’t gather in person because of the coronavirus, verse is happening on Facebook or Zoom, in people’s notebooks and in our earbuds. Some highlights are a sound artist who is making an audio collage of haikus about the pandemic, weekly book release readings from Copper Canyon Press, and the option to book a live video call with a poet through the Poetry Society of New York. Poetry was the first way I fell in love with words. Before journalism was even on my radar, I found comfort in the complexity of other people’s line breaks, and all the mysteries that such small amounts of text could contain. Now, in a moment of international uncertainty, when we can’t plan for the future, or even visualize exactly how the world might change in the aftermath of the pandemic, groups are gathering across the country and around the world to celebrate stanzas and all the things that poetry can do in a time of crisis. Here’s how you — a poetry lover or someone brand-new to the art form — can tune in and take part. Open Mics Nuyorican Poets Cafe offers online open mics via Zoom on Monday nights. Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon, a literary salon based in New York City and modeled after salons of the Harlem Renaissance (and founded by the poet and author JP Howard), is hosting an open mic over Zoom on April 18.

Ted Cruz Rips Corporate Media For ‘Rooting For Pandemic To Get Worse’

Subcommittee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks as Federal Aviation Administration Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt, and Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel appear before a Senate Transportation subcommittee hearing on commercial airline safety, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 27, 2019, in Washington. Two recent Boeing 737 MAX crashes, in Ethiopia and Indonesia, which killed nearly 350 people, have lead to the temporary grounding of models of the aircraft and to increased scrutiny of the FAA’s delegation of a number of aspects of the certification process to the aircraft manufacturers themselves. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) In a Monday appearance on Fox News, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) took aim at the corporate media for their biased coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak. He castigated the press for its continued efforts to politicize the pandemic to denigrate the Trump administration. Cruz accused progressive journalists of rooting for a “disaster” that would damage the president politically. He referenced a tweet from Glenn Kessler, a reporter working with The Washington Post as an example of their use of the coronavirus as a political weapon. The senator responded to Kessler’s tweet with a post of his own: The press HATED that, three months ago, we had the lowest African-American & Hispanic unemployment ever recorded. Now that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic—which originated in Wuhan, not the Oval Office—too many in the press are giddy with glee. #RootForAmerica https://t.co/JGb5mgHanT — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 5, 2020 During his appearance on Fox News, he said, “You see the media – much of the mainstream media was trying to root for disaster.” He continued: “They’re rooting for this pandemic to be worse and worse. And you saw The Washington Post self-proclaimed fact-checker was cheering about a line from the State of the Union where the President said we had the lowest unemployment in 50 years. And The Washington Post was saying, ‘Well, that didn’t stand up well to the test of time.’” Then, he went directly after Kessler. “Well, no, you moron,” he said. “We had the lowest level of African-American and Hispanic unemployment ever recorded until a global pandemic that originated in Wuhan came and ended up causing absolute chaos and catastrophe.” Cruz then argued that “We should be coming together to root for America, to root for defeating this pandemic, to root for jobs coming back. And I think too many partisan Democrats want to just use this catastrophe to attack Trump rather than come together and fight for our country.” The senator is right once again. After they downplayed the threat posed by the coronavirus, they pivoted to turning the outbreak into a political cudgel. Some seemed to hope that the pandemic would become Trump’s Hurricane Katrina. Left-leaning journalists engaged in brazen hypocrisy when they called conservatives racists for linking the virus to China even though their news outlets were doing the same previously. None of this is surprising, of course. The COVID-19 is just the latest in a series of smear campaigns that the media has perpetrated since Trump took office. They are likely hoping that this outbreak will cause enough political damage to cost the president the election in November. But the fact that his approval ratings remain stable demonstrates that they are not fooling anyone. Let me know what you think in the comments below! Follow me on Twitter: @JeffOnTheRight

How California's coronavirus outbreak compares to other states

For more coverage, visit our complete coronavirus section here. Although we may be finely attuned to California's daily coronavirus numbers, it can sometimes be hard to conceptualize how California's infection rate compares to other states. We know New York is the epicenter of the American COVID-19 outbreak, but how much worse are things in New York than in California? In short, staggeringly worse: New York has 710 cases per 100,000 residents. California has 41. The death rate is also much higher: 28 per 100,000 in New York compared to 1 per 100,000 in California. Of course, individuals confirmed to have coronavirus don't encompass the full picture. It's certain that many more people have or had the coronavirus but had mild or moderate symptoms and did not get tested or hospitalized. It's also interesting to note, however, that California recorded its first positive test in January; almost every other state didn't get its first positive until March. To give a clearer picture of how California compares to other states fighting the coronavirus right now, we pulled numbers from the 10 states with the most positive coronavirus cases in the nation, according to the Johns Hopkins database. From there, we calculated the approximate cases and deaths per 100,000 residents. New York Population: 19.54 million 138,836 cases 710 per 100,000 5,489 deaths 28 per 100,000 First case reported: March 1 New Jersey Population: 8.9 million 41,090 cases 462 per 100,000 1,003 deaths 11 per 100,000 First case reported: March 4 Michigan Population: 9.996 million 17,221 cases 172 per 100,000 727 deaths 7 per 100,000 First case reported: March 10 California Population: 39.56 million 16,429 cases 42 per 100,000 397 deaths 1 per 100,000 First case reported: Jan. 26 Louisiana Population: 4.66 million 14,867 cases 319 per 100,000 512 deaths 11 per 100,000 First case reported: March 9 Florida Population: 21.3 million 14,504 cases 68 per 100,000 283 deaths 1 per 100,000 First case reported: March 1 Massachusetts Population: 6.9 million 13,837 cases 201 per 100,000 260 deaths 4 per 100,000 First case reported: Feb. 1 Pennsylvania Population: 12.81 million 13,206 cases 103 per 100,000 179 deaths 1 per 100,000 First case reported: March 6 Illinois Population: 12.74 million 12,264 cases 96 per 100,000 308 deaths 2 per 100,000 First case reported: Jan. 24 Georgia Population: 10.52 million 8,821 cases 84 per 100,000 294 deaths 3 per 100,000 First case reported: March 2 --- MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE: Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on coronavirus here.

Wildlife group: Gulf oil spill still affecting wildlife

Wildlife group: Gulf oil spill still affecting wildlife A decade after the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, a wildlife advocacy organization says dolphins, turtles and other wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico are still seriously at risk ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A decade after the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, dolphins, turtles and other wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico are still seriously at risk, according to a report released Tuesday. The fact that the Gulf hasn’t fully recovered is “hardly surprising given the enormity of the disaster,” said David Muth, director of the Gulf of Mexico Restoration Program for the National Wildlife Federation, which authored the report. The April 20, 2010, explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 workers and spewed what the nonprofit environmental organization Ocean Conservancy estimated to be 210 million gallons (795 million liters) of oil before it was capped 87 days later. What followed, Muth said, was the largest restoration attempt ever in the world, with billions invested or committed to projects to help restore the Gulf and its ecosystem, and another $12 billion to be spent through the year 2032. “It's an opportunity we cannot afford to squander,” he said, adding that the projects create jobs. In the report, the NWF said it believes a large portion of the money should be spent on estuary restoration, where freshwater mixes with the saltwater of the Gulf. “Projects that restore wetlands, rebuild oyster reefs, protect important habitats from development, and recreate natural patterns of water flow and sediment deposition will help many species harmed by the oil. In addition to helping wildlife, many of these projects will help protect coastal communities from rising seas and extreme weather,” the report said. During a telephone news conference Tuesday, NWF experts highlighted the plight of a few species of wildlife that were affected by the spill: — Dolphins. They are still struggling, with many living in oiled areas still ill. About 55 percent had worsening lung disease, 43 percent exhibited abnormal stress responses, 25 percent were underweight, and 19 percent were anemic, the report said. Dolphins born after 2010 aren't as sick as those that were exposed directly to oil, but they also aren't as healthy as dolphins born in unoiled areas. Scientists say it could take affected dolphin populations decades to recover. — Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle. Once facing extinction in the 1960s, the sea turtles were largely saved by conservation efforts until the oil spill, which killed as many as 20 percent of adult females. Nesting in the post-spill years has fluctuated. — Birds. About 12 percent of brown pelicans and 32 percent of the laughing gulls in the northern Gulf died in the oil spill. Approximately 1 million offshore and coastal birds perished. Scientists estimate the oil killed or seriously hurt “billions, if not trillions” of animals, according to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups in 2019. The government declared a fisheries disaster. BP says its costs have topped $60 billion. In June of last year, environmental groups sued to challenge a decision by President Donald Trump's administration that they say weakened critical safety rules created after the spill.

US border: Residents warn workers building Trump’s wall could spread coronavirus

Residents of a southern New Mexico village are raising concerns about an influx of workers into their community to build President Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall during the coronavirus outbreak. They’ve asked the state’s top elected officials in a letter to step in after the federal contractor working on the project began erecting portable housing. Opponents argue that this goes against the intention of public health orders issued by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham aimed at limiting groups of people and contact to keep the coronavirus pandemic from worsening. “We respectfully ask that you do everything within your power to halt the influx of out-state-workers into our border communities to protect the safety and health of rural New Mexicans and border communities,” the letter reads. “The lives of New Mexicans are depending on it.” Residents of the village of Columbus, about 80 miles west of El Paso, Texas, fear the influx of between 40 and 60 workers could add further stress to health services should they fall ill, and will increase unnecessary interactions when they buy food. Lieutenant Governor Howie Morales has been in contact with Columbus mayor Esequiel Salas. “The national emergency right now is not building the border wall. The national emergency is the health crisis that we’re dealing with,” said Morales, stressing that the focus should be on building the capacity of the health care system. Ray Trejo, coordinator with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, was in Columbus on Monday and saw the rows of portable housing. His group is among those that signed the letter with the ACLU of New Mexico, the New Mexico Centre on Law and Poverty and others. “While we all do our best to stay at home and adhere to the governor’s guidance, these individuals pose an uncontrollable threat to our community as they work side-by-side in close quarters and travel in and out of our city and patronise local businesses. They should be gone tomorrow,” Mr Trejo said. The US Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees contractors working on the border, told The Associated Press last week that the agency follows federal guidelines but declined to share specifics on how it’s protecting public health during construction. The federal contractor employing the workers, Texas-based SLS, was awarded nearly $790 million last year to install steel bollards in southern New Mexico. A similar situation is also happening across the country in northern Montana, where work began over the weekend on the Keystone XL pipeline. Democratic governor Steve Bullock said concerns about planned worker camps, that could house as many as 1,000 people each, need to be resolved before sponsor TC Energy finalises its construction plans. Despite a clampdown on people’s movements across much of the US, the border wall and pipeline work are exempt from stay-at-home restrictions. Even in New Mexico, the public health orders carve out exemptions for infrastructure operations such as public works construction and the repair and construction of roads. As of Tuesday, New Mexico has 686 cases of coronavirus and 12 recorded deaths. Loading....

The doomed position of Trump's press secretary

New White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has made his first big decision, sending Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham back to the East Wing. His next decision, however, could determine the path of his tenure working for a mercurial president. Ms Grisham's appointment was more about loyalty than fit. She became close to the First Lady Melania Trump while serving as her communications director and press secretary. When Sarah Huckabee Sanders departed as Mr Trump's ever-loyal top spokeswoman after a turbulent tenure during which press relations soured to new lows, the president had a decision to make. He could have looked outside his circle and brought in a communications professional, likely with high-level government experience, to deal with reporters. Or he could have looked inside his ever-shrinking inner circle of political bomb-throwers for someone he felt he could trust – even if those on what was a very short list lacked the background and policy knowledge to quickly get up to speed pushing his message. He chose the former. But Ms Grisham admittedly lacked the level of knowledge about policy and how it's made in Washington that even Ms Sanders and Sean Spicer developed. Whether she ever did was a mystery. That's because she never held a formal press briefing and her television appearances were mostly on Fox News, a mostly Trump-cheering network that allowed her to sound more like a presidential campaign surrogate than a White House press secretary. She never grew into the full job description, and it does not appear Mr Trump pushed her to do so. "In many ways, the relatively low profile of the departing White House press secretary is a reminder that President Trump really is his own chief communicator," said Michael Steel, a former press secretary for then-House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "And he seems to like it that way, so it's unlikely it will change." 'Reality television' Enter Mr Meadows. The conservative former North Carolina House member was brought on recently to replace another former conservative House member from the Carolinas: Mick Mulvaney from neighboring South Carolina. Like Ms Grisham, Mr Mulvaney had a rocky tenure. Unlike Ms Grisham, the former acting chief of staff never fully earned the president's trust. Rebuilding the press office and communications shop will give Mr Meadows a chance to get off on the right foot with the fickle Mr Trump. But like Mr Mulvaney, Mr Trump's two other chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and John Kelly, were unable to put together messaging organizations or strategies that pleased the boss. That's because, "this president is used to the show with him being the showman, and that show used to be reality television," said Martha Kumar of the Presidential Transition Project, who studies presidential relations with the press. "Any press person coming into the White House needs to be aware of that." As Mr Trump reportedly has okayed Kayleigh McEnany, who has been a top spokeswoman for his re-election campaign, taking over as press secretary, Ms Kumar offered some advice to her and Mr Meadows. "President Trump's view is that he wants a White House staff where there is some measure of chaos," she said. "Where others see chaos, Trump sees energy." Alyssa Farah, a senior Defence Department spokeswoman and former press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, is poised to become the next White House strategic communications director. And Hope Hicks, who once was communications director, has returned in another role -- but has been involved in messaging. One Republican source who worked on Capitol Hill noted "it's not unusual on Capitol Hill for a new chief of staff to prefer a press secretary that he or she knows is loyal." That's what Mr Meadows knows, bringing some logic to the shake up. 'His own press secretary' But Ms Farah and Ms McEnany should beware. "It looks like there will be three people running press and messaging," Ms Kumar said. "But there really are four because the president really sees himself as his own press secretary and communications director." "We saw that with Stephanie Grisham," Ms Kumar added. "Where she was like other press secretaries was she did just what the boss asked – it's just that this president wanted different things." Though Ms Grisham interacted with plenty of reporters daily, including during her coronavirus self-quarantine period, she was not a big presence around the West Wing. In some ways, the image of her legacy won't be a picture of her during a particularly historic or combative press briefings – but the blue nameplate with the white letters on her often-closed West Wing office door. "That reflected her in-person meetings with reporters, or the lack of them. In-person contacts with reporters is just not something she did," Ms Kumar said. "Her relationships were on the phone and over email. That tends not to serve a press secretary well because you need an image of personal contact in a group setting. Press secretaries are often measured by the briefings they held.

Coronavirus: Ontario launches online portal to recruit health-care workers

Send this page to someone via email The Ontario government has created an online portal aimed at matching skilled frontline health-care workers with employers amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Health Workforce Matching Portal will allow skilled workers — including retired or non-active health-care professionals, internationally educated health-care workers, volunteers with experience and students — to apply to join the province’s fight against COVID-19. “Our health-care heroes on the frontlines of this battle are doing extraordinary work, but they need reinforcements to step up and lend a hand to help defeat this virus,” Premier Doug Ford said in a statement. “Whether you’re retired or in training, we can’t afford to have people with professional health care skills who want to help sitting on the sidelines during this crisis. This is a call to action and I encourage every available person with health-care experience to get involved.” Story continues below advertisement The government said the online portal will match the availability and skills of workers to employers looking for more assistance, adding that positions will be paid. LISTEN: Earlier Tuesday, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown called on the province to allow foreign-trained doctors to work during the pandemic. [ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ] He later applauded the government’s decision on Twitter: Story continues below advertisement People looking to register using the portal are able to do so here. If successful, they will receive an email. Meanwhile, Ontario reported 379 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing the provincial total to 4,726, including 153 deaths. 5:14 Coronavirus outbreak: Patrick Brown says foreign-trained doctors should be allowed to work in hospitals Coronavirus outbreak: Patrick Brown says foreign-trained doctors should be allowed to work in hospitals

Toronto mayor urges residents using gloves and masks to stop littering

TORONTO -- Toronto Mayor John Tory is asking that people not throw their disposable gloves, masks and wipes onto streets amid the health crisis. The city is becoming littered especially with the wasted rubber gloves, he said, which citizens have been wearing while shopping, to protect them from possible infection of COVID 19. Streets and parking lots around grocery stores have seen an influx of gloves that appear to have been thrown carelessly on the ground by shoppers after leaving supermarkets. Tory told CTV News Toronto that no one should resort to throwing any litter on the ground, but added that “this is more serious because these are things that you've had on your hands, masks you've had on.” He said even people coming out hospitals have thrown masks on the ground, and those germs could last for a period of time. Researchers have yet to determine how long the COVID 19 virus can remain on a surface, but have warned citizens to wash their hands thoroughly after contacting potentially hazardous areas. Shoppers near the FreshCo at Queen Street West and Gladstone Avenue were horrified when shown the discarded gloves, wipes and masks on the streets. “I wouldn't touch them,” Toronto resident Victoria Marshall said. "I would hope that kids wouldn't touch them. That would be my biggest concern [that¸ kids might run up and pick them up." Sarah Dinn, who was strolling through the area with her three-year-old daughter on Tuesday, told CTV News Toronto she thought people were being thoughtless during this pandemic. "I think it is despicable, deplorable, I don't understand. If I'm able to clean up after my dog [then] why can't someone put their glove in garbage,” she said. “It's a health risk. The logic of trying to protect yourselves with a glove and discard it is problematic.” A FreshCo employee was dispatched every few hours Tuesday to clean the grocery chain's property.

Oklahoma State puts brakes on Mike Gundy's hope of May 1 return

Ryan Clark makes a case for why the college football season should go on as scheduled even if fans aren't in the stadiums. (1:02) Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said Tuesday that his goal is to return to the football building on May 1 because he hopes that tests for COVID-19 will be available in a few weeks to clear both employees and players -- a proposed timetable the university and its athletic director quickly disputed. Gundy, speaking to more than a dozen reporters on a teleconference, said that although it would depend on whether there will be enough tests available in three or four weeks that he could get his assistant coaches and support personnel tested for the virus, it was his full intention that his team "start on May 1." "It might get backed up two weeks," Gundy said. "I don't know, I can't make that call, but if it does, we'll start with the employees of this company, the ones that come in this building. Then we'll bring the players in, and slowly but surely, we'll test them all in." In what was roughly a 20-minute opening statement, Gundy talked about the national and state response to the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has shut down sports across the globe, and college football has set no date to return to practice. Gundy, who has been working remotely from his home and spending time on his farm, said that if somebody were to test positive after returning to work, that person would be quarantined "just like we do people that get the flu." "We get people that get the flu during the season, we quarantine them, we treat them, we make sure they're healthy, we bring 'em back," Gundy said. "It would be the same thing here, but at some point, we've got to go back to work. We've got to get these guys back in here. ... From what I read, the healthy people can fight this, the antibodies make it better. They're doing some blood transplants now with the people that have already gotten the disease, that have gotten over it that have the antibodies that can fight it. There's a lot of people who can figure this out. May 1's our goal. Don't know if it will happen. Players will come in after that." Following Gundy's comments, the university issued a statement saying, essentially, that the decision about when to bring the football team back together wouldn't be up to the coach. "We will adhere to the advice of public health experts who are making informed decisions in the best interest of the citizens of our nation and state based on sound scientific data,'' the university statement said. "We will also abide by the federal and state mandates as well as Big 12 guidelines. We will not compromise the health and well-being of our campus community. This virus is deadly and we will do our part at Oklahoma State to help blunt the spread.'' Athletic director Mike Holder also declined to back Gundy's timeline, saying in a statement: "May 1 seems a little ambitious.'' Gundy said he was interested in hearing more positive news about the COVID-19 pandemic, which has crippled economies and forced restrictions on the movement of people around the world in an effort to stop the virus from spreading further and overwhelming health care systems. "I'm seeing total number of cases, but what I'm not seeing is how many number of those cases that are now back to a normal life,'' Gundy said, adding: "It's really interesting to me to see with the mainstream media, sadly enough, just how negative everybody can be. Let's just report the news. Let's start putting some things in there that are positive, because I know there's positive out there.'' Gundy said there could be people who work in the football building who are older or "maybe have some type of underlying condition." "Maybe they don't come back," he said, "but the majority of people in this building who are healthy ... and certainly the 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-, 22-year-olds that are healthy, the so-called medical people saying the herd of healthy people that have the antibodies maybe built up and can fight this? We all need to go back to work. "I'm not taking away from the danger of people getting sick," he said. "You have the virus, stay healthy, try to do what we can to help people that are sick. And we're losing lives, which is just terrible. The second part of it is that we still have to schedule and continue to move forward as life goes on and help those people." The Associated Press contributed to this report.

House lawmakers advocate to preserve medical funding for underserved, rural areas

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is urging congressional leadership to preserve medical funding for underserved and rural areas amid the coronavirus pandemic. Reps. Doug LaMalfa Douglas (Doug) LaMalfaDemocrats hit Interior secretary for reportedly refusing to wear mask in meeting with tribes GOP lawmakers plan measure to force Americans to divest from firms linked to Chinese military: report House lawmakers advocate to preserve medical funding for underserved, rural areas MORE (R-Calif.) and Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.) sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiMcConnell focuses on confirming judicial nominees with COVID-19 talks stalled Overnight Defense: Top admiral says 'no condition' where US should conduct nuclear test 'at this time' | Intelligence chief says Congress will get some in-person election security briefings Pelosi must go — the House is in dire need of new leadership MORE (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Kevin Owen McCarthyTrump's sharp words put CDC director on hot seat House GOP leader says he trusts Trump over CDC director on vaccine timing The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by The Air Line Pilots Association - Trump contradicts CDC director on vaccine, masks MORE (R-Calif.) on Monday highlighting shortages of physicians and resources in underserved and rural areas. The letter, signed by more than a dozen other lawmakers, requests long-term funding and resources for programs that serve rural communities and vulnerable populations. ADVERTISEMENT It asks the leaders to extend the reauthorization of several programs to five years, from their current Nov. 30 expiration date, to stabilize them. The programs were initially reauthorized as part of the coronavirus stimulus bill passed last month. The programs include the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) Program, Community Health Centers (CHCs), National Health Service Corps, Special Diabetes Program and Special Diabetes Program for Indians. The lawmakers asserted that the continuous deadlines “leave health care providers and patients alike facing uncertainty as the expiration date looms.” “The absence of a long-term authorization undermines health care providers’ ability to invest in purchases such as medical equipment and forces them to brace for significant layoffs of staff,” the letter said. LaMalfa said in a statement that THCGMEs treat those in “medically underserved rural areas” and help train physicians who could stay long-term and benefit the area. ADVERTISEMENT “A 5-year reauthorization of critical funding for THCGMEs and CHCs helps grow the number of physicians in our area, while giving patients the stability they need,” he said. Torres Small said rural health care providers “already operate at the margins” and are under “more financial strain and uncertainty” without the programs’ continuation confirmed. “Doctors and nurses are working around the clock to protect our families and neighbors, and it’s now on Congress to step up to end unnecessary doubt and secure long-term authorization for these proven community-based programs,” she said in a statement. Their call comes amid the coronavirus crisis, which has infected more than 383,200 people and killed at least 12,021 people in the U.S. There have been 20,191 recorded recoveries nationwide, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Maryland announces first-in-the-nation 'strike teams' to tackle coronavirus in nursing homes

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Tuesday the formation of "strike teams" to help assisted care living centers dealing with the coronavirus, the first state in the nation to enact such efforts. The announcement follows the confirmation that 90 elderly care facilities in Maryland have confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to The Baltimore Sun. The strike teams will include local health care workers, National Guard members and a handful of other public health aides from state and local health departments. ADVERTISEMENT The teams will focus efforts on supervising virus testing and assisting to separate exposed residents and staff from other healthy assisted care workers and community residents. Hogan added that the teams would also bring in medical supplies and workers directly to assisted care facilities to prevent unnecessary patient transfers to hospitals. "We're the first state in the nation to launch such a coordinated response effort," he said. "The goal here is not to replace a nursing home's medical or clinical team, but to provide immediate support and assistance to help protect residents." The governor previously enacted an emergency order on Sunday mandating nurses in homes to use expedited testing options to identify carriers of the virus more quickly, while also instructing them to wear masks and other protective equipment, which has been in short supply across the country, in assisted care facilities. Fran Phillips, deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Health, confirmed the shortage of equipment is stymieing the government's efforts to stop the spread in elderly communities. "We are still in a national shortage of the basic raw materials that are necessary to do these tests," Phillips said. "It is a continuing source of frustration."

Coronavirus: Major League Baseball could be first professional sport to return as soon as May

America's pastime could be the first professional sport to resume in the US under a reported plan that would see Major League Baseball games played in empty stadiums as early as May. Sources confirmed to The Independent that the plan would require all 30 teams play televised games at stadiums with no fans in the stands. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they have given their support. The plan would adhere to strict isolation and promote social distancing by sequestering players, coaching staff and other essential personal in isolation at local hotels and only travel to and from games in the Phoenix area, including at Arizona Diamondbacks' Chase Field, 10 spring training facilities and potentially other nearby fields. In response to the report, the MLB put out a statement on Tuesday saying they have been actively considering numerous contingency plans that would allow play to commence once the public health situation has improved, but that no decisions had been made. "While we have discussed the idea of staging games at one location as one potential option, we have not settled on that option or developed a detailed plan," the statement said. "While we continue to interact regularly with governmental and public health officials, we have not sought or received approval of any plan from federal, state and local officials, or the Players Association. The health and safety of our employees, players, fans and the public at large are paramount, and we are not ready at this time to endorse any particular format for staging games in light of the rapidly changing public health situation caused by the coronavirus." The MLB Players Association did not comment on the plan, but an official with the association confirmed preliminary meetings were held on Monday and further meetings would be held in the near future. The plan would require the buy-in of players, who would have to be separate and isolated from their families for more than four months if the Covid-19 outbreak is not controlled in 2020. If a deal is agreed to, logistical issues around coronavirus testing, lodging, security, and transportation would be ironed out during a two-week training camp before the season begins.

Equestria Girls

Equestria Girls A mobile game based on the Equestria Girls films and toyline. Players often have to scan in toys in order to complete tasks.

John Lewis endorses Biden and calls on him to choose a woman of colour as VP

Congressman John Lewis has endorsed Joe Biden for president and called on him to pick a woman of colour as his running mate. Mr Lewis is a representative for Georgia and is well known for his civil rights activism in the 1960s, where he was one of six leaders who organised the 1963 March on Washington. Ahead of his endorsement announcement on Tuesday, Mr Lewis told reporters that “we need his voice,” while referring to the former vice president. He said that Mr Biden is “a man of courage, a man of great conscience, a man of faith,” and said he will “help us regain our way as a nation.” The 80-year-old, who revealed in December 2019 that he is receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer, endorsed Mr Biden in the video on Twitter, saying that “Joe Biden has no delusion about this nation’s past, but he knows who we can be at our best.” Mr Lewis narrates the video, depicting his civil rights activism, and says “I know hatred when I see it. I have felt it. I have stared down the deepest and darkest forces in this nation.” As clips of far right protests are played, he claims that “over the past four years I have seen the same kind of evil rear its head again. You judge the character of a man by how he chooses to respond to that moral obligation.” Mr Lewis adds that “Vice president Joe Biden has never stopped speaking up for his fellow man. Joe Biden and I both believe that we are in a fight to redeem the soul of America.” Mr Lewis also told reporters before the announcement that “it would be good to have a woman of colour” as the US vice president. In a live TV debate with Bernie Sanders in March, Mr Biden pledged to pick a woman as his running mate if he is chosen to be the Democratic candidate for president. “If I’m elected president, my cabinet, my administration, will look like the country, and I commit that I will in fact appoint and pick a woman as vice president,” he said. “There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow,” he added. The endorsement comes ahead of the Democratic Georgia primary, which has been rescheduled from 24 March to 19 May, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

JeffCo city councilors do the unexpected

Today’s guest columnist is Jennifer Andress. If you’d like to be a guest columnist, please click here. I’m writing on behalf of a group of elected officials from disparate Jefferson County cities that are doing what many people might have thought impossible. I’ve been looking forward to updating my piece about our City Councilor Roundtable initiative, promoting regional cooperation, but we had some local issues in Homewood that took all of my attention. And then, WOW. The world turned upside down. I was unsure what I could possibly add to all that was being reported on in regards to the global pandemic we are facing. But then it hit me: our City Council Roundtable is more pertinent than ever during these days of COVID-19. I’ll catch you up on what we had been working on before all of our attention turned to coronavirus, and then fill you in on where we are day-by-day during this pandemic. To recap: at the suggestion of Hoover City Councilor Casey Middlebrooks in January 2019, and with the facilitation efforts of County Commissioner Steve Ammons, a regular group of City Councilors from Hoover, Birmingham, Mountain Brook, Bessemer, Vestavia Hills and Homewood have been meeting on a monthly-ish basis. These were at first more getting-to-know you lunches, but in the late spring they turned to action-oriented efforts. We first collaborated on our individual city’s resolutions supporting the vaping regulation bill that was stalled in the Alabama Legislature during last year’s session, which eventually passed. We then turned to improving our region’s recycling efforts, and launched our Inter-City Recycling Challenge, a multi-pronged effort to educate our respective constituents on do’s and don’ts, why they matter and how to reduce contamination and recycling costs in our cities. By this January, we began looking at alternative recycling options, and before the world stopped, we were meeting with a start-up company called NeoWaste. I recommend you look at this promising new technology; we will pick this up again when life returns to normal. We were also sharing ideas on how to drive Census 2020 participation, as it is vitally important for Alabama to have strong numbers of our people turn out; once again a friendly competition between us was born. And then in March, coronavirus descended on our area seemingly overnight. As each of our respective cities began trying to deal with the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, our Councilor Roundtable communicated several times a day. That continues to this day, as things change hourly with this dire matter. We have had frank discussions, learned from each other, and shared knowledge resources from our respective cities. Jefferson County is wealthy with smart people in a plethora of critical industries, and we have been busy connecting those people across city lines. I am so grateful for the professionalism, wisdom, and thoughtfulness of my peers in our neighboring cities. If a Councilor poses a question to our group that we can’t answer, another immediately does research and quickly reports back. Even as I type this, text messages are coming in; things are changing so fast. Our Commissioner Steve Ammons has suggested we formalize this relationship, as our Mayors have done with the Mayors’ Association. This way our network remains in place no matter who the officeholders are. Indeed, a large number of us are up for re-election this summer. This is a wonderful idea that we will explore when we can turn our attention to other matters. I sincerely pray for the day that we can focus once again on solving our recycling conundrum, quality-of-life issues like new trails and traffic solutions, and supporting our region’s non-profits such as the Birmingham Zoo, Vulcan Park and Red Mountain Park. Until then, I am profoundly grateful for the leadership in each of our County’s municipalities (as well as our County Commissioner!), and even more thankful for their friendship. I also welcome other Jefferson County City Councilors to join us at any of our monthly meetings. Together we make a stronger region! Email me at andress4hwd@gmail.com for information on future gatherings. Stay safe and healthy, everyone! Jennifer Andress is a Homewood City Councilor, and serves on the Red Mountain Greenway Recreational Area Commission. Jennifer is a member of the Board of Directors of Girls on The Run Birmingham, and the Woolley Institute for Spoken Language Education (WISE), a pre-school for children with cochlear implants and/or hearing aids, like her two sons. She and her husband Keith have lived in Homewood for 18 years. Click here to sign up for our newsletter. (Opt out at any time) David Sher is Co-Founder of AmSher Compassionate Collections. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP). Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@amsher.com. (Visited 2,326 times, 1 visits today)

What Makes DeFi Decentralized? Rune Christensen on Centralized Collateral and Decentralizing Make

As part of its Black Thursday mitigation efforts, MakerDAO introduced USDC as a form of collateral. While this was an emergency measure, it touched the very sensitive topic of centralized collateral assets in Maker (MKR). The concept of decentralization underpins the entire existence of crypto, serving as a core ideology. Historically, decentralization has clashed with the need to be pragmatic in creating useful products. An example of that is the 2016 DAO hack that led to the split between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The controversy swung between the idealistic concept of “code is law” and the pragmatic realization that code can be faulty — and that the consequences of those faults should be corrected. The complex interaction between decentralization and pragmatism entered a whole new dimension in decentralized finance (DeFi). The actions of the Maker community in response to Black Thursday best exemplify this interaction, as the debates often centered on whether it was “right” to add centralized collateral or repay the victims of the crash. Pragmatism seems to be winning in the community, for now. But Cointelegraph’s interview with Rune Christensen showed that his own ideas are also a complex amalgam of ideology and pragmatism. For one, he has traditionally favored the idea of relying on centralized collateral to support the decentralized DAI stablecoin. The case for centrally-tokenized assets Cointelegraph asked Christensen why he is so supportive of adding centralized collateral to DAI. He prefaced his answer by saying: “What matters in this discussion is that Maker protocol, and DeFi in general, is about creating real value and real use, in the real world. It's not the ideology that's the most important.” In his view, choosing good collateral is all about risk management, and both centralized and decentralized assets can present risk. For centralized assets such as the USDC stablecoin, their issuer has the right to freeze funds — which if done on Maker collateral would instantly destabilize the system. In addition, the issuer of that asset could fail in a variety of ways and bring down the token’s peg with it. But Christensen believes that decentralized assets have risks of their own, namely their volatility. He summarized his thoughts: “There’s Ethereum and then there’s a centralized stablecoin, or generally, speculative crypto versus tokenized fiat. It’s almost like they’re at completely opposite ends of the risk spectrum. So the two types of assets actually complement each other quite well.” He added that relying on just one stablecoin is not ideal, but “spreading out that risk across five different stablecoins” would be an “obvious next step.” In any case, Christensen stressed that the responsibility rests with the Maker community: “It is the MKR holders that make this type of decision, with this alignment of incentives that if they make the wrong decision and take a big risk [...] the MKR holders have to pay for the loss.” This type of thinking showcases some of Christensen’s ideological side. The complex journey of decentralizing Maker Some may be surprised to discover that Maker was born in late 2014, well before even Ethereum’s launch in July 2015. Christensen recalled those times: “From the very beginning of the project, I naively thought that all I would need to do is to write the white paper, and then I could just leave it to the decentralized community to take care of.” He noted that the project was initially “incredibly decentralized” as it was him and a few co-founders working on it. But that approach didn’t work, and the foundation was born to direct the development of the project. He added: “Over the years I kept running into it [...] My ideology and my hope for how DeFi and blockchain would play out kept crashing into reality. It turns out actually you do, quite often, need someone to make the tough decisions and make sure of things.” On April 3 — shortly before the interview — the Maker Foundation announced its concrete plan to dissolve itself as MakerDAO reaches full decentralization. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Christensen stayed out of the community’s decision-making after Black Thursday. While he did not admit this directly, the timing of these events suggests that, at least in part, he was testing the community — to see if it could make the “tough decisions” on its own. It appears that the community passed it with flying colors, and it will be rewarded with all the resources necessary to continue development of Maker. Speaking about his own role at the end of the journey, he said:

Former Facebook Exec: BTC's Price is Either Going to Zero or Seven Figures

In a recent discussion with Morgan Creek Digital Partner Anthony Pompliano, Social Capital CEO and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya asserted that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) will either reach “millions,” or go to “zero.” For Palihapitiya, the question of whether Bitcoin succeeds will be determined by whether the architects of the existing financial system continue on the current path toward debasement. BTC price will either go to the moon or the gutter Palihapitiya asserts that his case for BTC gaining over 100x from its current price rests on deteriorating public confidence in the dominant financial apparatus and money commodities. “The path dependence for Bitcoin is if it looks like [debasement] is likely, it will really emerge as a flight to safety,” he states, adding of the existing financial system: “We are driving, slowly, but we are driving towards a cliff. And then, we’re going to drive much, much faster down that cliff or down that hill. And at the end of it is a huge brick wall.” Palihapitiya’s lofty price predictions are for the much longer term, with the former Facebook executing warning that there is ”a real chance that by 2030 we don’t find a way to inflate our way out of [crisis].” He continued: “The only way to break the back of inflation is essentially to create some quasi form of a gold standard, but it’ll be almost impossible to do that between governments and central banks. They’ll never agree on an instrument and they’ll never agree on an exchange [rate]. But then, bottoms up, people could decide to do it [with Bitcoin].” Cryptocurrencies are “too speculative” to supersede fiat Palihapitiya dismissed the notion that Bitcoin could come to replace fiat currencies as a globally dominant means of exchange any time soon, asserting that Bitcoin is “too speculative for it to be reliable.” “If you’re going to make the case that it should replace fiat currency, one thing you have to look at is the volatility of the U.S. dollar. You can’t replace it with something that’s nine sigma more volatile. It doesn’t work.” The Social Capital CEO argued that the volatility of Bitcoin has pushed it into a “ghetto of day traders and speculators, right now, that’s where we are. We’re in that ghetto.” Palihapitiya likens BTC to ‘hurricane insurance’ Amid the aftermath from the record crash of March 12 - 13 that saw the price of Bitcoin fall by 50% over less than two days, Palihapitiya took to Twitter to describe BTC as half-priced “hurricane insurance.”

Chinese embassy in Pyongyang compromised in massive cyberattack

In a major attack against the Chinese government, a hacking group linked to the Korean peninsula gained access to embassy data in the DPRK and more than a dozen other locations around the world, the Beijing-based security firm Qihoo 360 said Monday. According to the company, a group known as DarkHotel compromised more than 200 servers of a domestic VPN provider used by Chinese government agencies in 19 countries, as well as Shanghai and Beijing, using a malicious software update to take control of computers.

All Crises Are Dealt With Locally, Even Coronavirus

“South Dakota is not New York City.” A seemingly innocuous statement, made last Wednesday by Governor Kristi Noem in response to calls for her to issue a coronavirus shutdown across a state with the motto “Under God the People Rule.” South Dakota, after all, is one of the least densely populated states in the vast American West. Surely local circumstances should inform local responses to a communicable disease? Not so, according to Noem’s scolds at Change.org. They want the same “theory” applied in Brooklyn and in prairie towns with eleven residents per square mile. To her tremendous credit, Governor Noem has held firm against the tide of state officials ordering lockdowns and shelter-in-place directives. As of today five US states do not have statewide shutdown orders in place, and some sheriffs too have stood bravely against impositions of soft martial law. Here are some of Governor Noem’s excellent recent statements regarding South Dakota’s response to the pandemic: The calls to apply for a one-size-fits-all approach to this problem is herd mentality. The people are primarily responsible for their safety. Our constitution ensures that the citizen’s right is protected. I agree with the role of our government as set forth in our state and in our national constitution. [I oppose] draconian measures much like the Chinese government has done [and] actions we’ve seen European governments take that limit [the] citizen’s rights. Refreshing, and also a needed reminder that all crises are local. No matter how rich you are or where you live, you are enormously dependent on localized medical care, food, water, electricity, gas, and general lawful behavior. Every calorie, kilowatt, and drop of water must make its way to your location no matter how complex the underlying economy is today. Doctors, nurses, and drugs must be available within a reasonable distance of your location. None of the physical substances necessary for your survival can be sourced from a global supply chain unless “last mile” delivery remains intact. If faraway production facilities, farms, warehouses, trains, trucks, and power plants break down, eventually Governor Noem’s constituents will feel it. People seem to intuit the local impact of a global crisis, and the reality that the greater world is not coming to save them. South Dakotans are entitled to think locally, out of self-preservation, in this crisis. So are Japanese, Singaporeans, South Korean, and Swedes, for that matter. There is no UN agreement or statement at work concerning the pandemic, nor any universally agreed-upon supranational guidelines. International bodies such as the World Health Organization have been unable to project authority during the crisis, much less gain international compliance with their shifting recommendations. Countries around the world have implemented a hodgepodge of policies, and they’ve done so unilaterally. China brutally locked down its Hubei Province, while Sweden chooses to keep public life largely unaffected, with virtually no quarantines or business shutdowns. Many countries chose an intermediate path. In Europe, the 1985 Schengen Area Agreement allowing open travel between twenty-six European countries has broken down due to the virus, with Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, and others closing off borders with armed guards. In a crisis, it turns out a German or French passport really is not a “European” passport after all. Nationalities and citizenship, the bane of political globalists, exist. Whether this fact of life is inherently illiberal depends both on one’s perspective and how various nations act internally under duress. Is Germany too trenchant in its response to the virus and Sweden too liberal? Who’s to say? The calculation becomes more and more difficult at scale, moving from the local to regional to national to international to global level. Crises remind us exactly why local matters. This is exactly what we should expect, and want, in a pandemic: competing visions as to the severity and scope of the problem, differing localized approaches, experimental treatments, and nimble entrepreneurial provision of resources and supplies. To an extent, there will be scoreboard. Some countries and some US states will fare better than others. But questions about top-down control from Washington. DC, or beyond will not go away. Federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have looked foolish and impotent throughout this crisis, as has the Trump administration’s infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci. If in hindsight cheap antimalarial drugs and antibiotics prove to be effective treatments, the entire narrative of ventilators and lockdowns will appear foolish and destructive. Yes, there will be accusations, recriminations, and calls for more bureaucracy and more regulations. The political class will gain; the American people will lose. But there is a silver lining as our already dangerously polarized country begins to understand more deeply how South Dakota really isn’t New York City at all—and question why that same political class wants one set of rules for 330 million people. After all, if Brooklyn and Sioux Falls don’t need the same policy on coronavirus, what about taxes, guns, abortion, climate change, and everything else? The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!

New Practices Improve Stroke Care

A new method of evaluating and prioritizing treatment for patients with suspected acute stroke, which has been used by the Stockholm health authority since 2017, has led to faster health interventions and better patient care, shows a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the journal JAMA Neurology. Stroke can be caused by a clot in the large arteries of the brain. For every minute that an artery is blocked, two million neurons die. Without acute intervention, only 10 percent of the patients return to normal function three months after their stroke. The most effective intervention is mechanical clot removal, or endovascular thrombectomy (EVT). The earlier the blood vessel is re-opened, the greater the number of brain cells that survive. However, there is commonly some delay before treatment, as most patients are taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital for examination, and then transferred to EVT-performing university hospitals, such as the Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. “There has been a justification for this system, as patients who don’t need EVT receive the best care at the stroke unit in their local A&E hospital,” says the study’s lead author Michael Mazya, consultant at Karolinska University Hospital and researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. “The challenge for ambulance staff has been to assess which patients may benefit from direct transport to a university hospital, and which can be taken to the nearest stroke unit as usual.” To reduce the time to EVT, a new triage system has been used in the Stockholm region since October 2017. The results have now been evaluated in a new study published in the scientific journal JAMA Neurology. In patients with suspected stroke, the triage involves two steps. First the ambulance nurse tests the degree of symptom severity using the A2L2 system (where A stands for arm, and L for leg). If the patient is unable to raise his or her arm for ten seconds and the leg for five, it generally indicates a severe stroke, which often requires EVT. The second step is a telephone call to a stroke physician, to exchange additional information and decide on the optimal destination. “The telephone consultation allows the ambulance staff and stroke physician to discuss the preliminary diagnosis,” Mazya says. “The doctor can read up on the patient’s background and activate the stroke team. This really speeds up acute management and treatment decisions once the patient arrives at the hospital.” The results show that thanks to the A2L2 test and tele-consultation, 71 percent of patients in need of EVT are now taken directly to Karolinska University Hospital in Solna, as opposed to 28 percent before. The average time from stroke onset to EVT is now two hours and 15 minutes, which is 70 minutes faster than in the old system, 65 minutes faster than the Swedish national average, and a full 1 hour and 45 minutes faster than in international randomized studies of EVT. Faster treatment delivery has resulted in 34 percent of EVT patients completely recovering their functional ability, compared with 24 percent in the old system, despite the fact that patients treated since the implementation of the new system have been older and had a higher average stroke severity. “The results are very pleasing,” says Christina Sjöstrand, senior consultant in charge of stroke care at Karolinska University Hospital and researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. “Much of the success is thanks to a close collaboration between key stroke professionals in all of the region’s hospitals, and colleagues in pre-hospital care. We are continuing to use the new triage system throughout the Stockholm region and will be presenting more comprehensive data on patient outcomes at the World Stroke Conference in Vienna in November this year.” Alex Jones reveals the latest bombshells on how the elite are using the COVID-19 crisis to expand their control on the population. The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!

What “Lender of Last Resort” Is Supposed to Mean

Modern central banks have already moved far beyond what was once considered the proper role for a central bank as a “lender of last resort.” Now Keynesians and MMTers (modern monetary theorists) want to take things even further. As the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent freezing of economic activity take place, many economists are hoping for central bankers and monetary policy to take the lead and steer the economy. However, this cannot possibly be the solution—the shock being mainly a supply one rather than a demand one. Moreover, a fiery debate is taking place within the eurozone about European Central Bank’s role and, more precisely, its (unduly disputed) nature as a full-fledged lender of last resort (LoLR). There are two main stripes amongst those economists, politicians, and journalists asserting the incompleteness and inadequacy of the ECB’s mandate to act as a full-fledged LoLR: the first group comprises many Keynesians and post-Keynesians, while the second features MMTers and monetary nationalists. Keynesians and ​Post-Keynesians The first vein of criticisms raised against the ECB’s toolbox stems from a paper published by Belgian economist Paul De Grauwe in 2013 (already circulating as a working paper back in 2011). The argument proposed by the Belgian economist goes as follows: even after the technical introduction of OMT (outright monetary transactions) in September 2012, the ECB cannot be considered a full-fledged lender of last resort, because in the case of a sovereign bond crisis it would not guarantee unlimited purchasing of member states’ government bonds on the secondary market. In other words, De Grauwe contends that—in a financial crisis—a full-fledged LoLR (within a fractional reserve system) should not only prevent bank runs (granting liquidity to illiquid but still solvent commercial banks), but also make sure that governments can access liquidity at low interest rates on financial markets—even (if needed) via unlimited injection of high-powered money into the economy. However, this argument is patently flawed for at least two reasons. First, the classical theory about central banks and their role as LoLR (formulated by Henry Thornton and Walter Bagehot in the nineteenth century) does not contemplate any kind of interaction between central banks and governments at all. Being the LoLR only entitles one to decide, during a financial crisis, whether a commercial bank is illiquid (and hence worth saving) or insolvent (and hence no longer useful to the economic system). Governments, on the other hand, need to fund their expenditures either through taxation or borrowing; either way, this is a fiscal policy concern—never ever a monetary policy one. That’s why, indeed, such ideas as helicopter money and deficit monetization (MMT) are deeply perverted—paving the way for socialism—and contrary to economic theory: they are, as Hayek put it, the most detrimental potential outcome of “the unholy marriage between monetary and fiscal policy, long clandestine but formally consecrated with the victory of ‘Keynesian’ economics.” Second, this interpretation of the LoLR’s role would entail clear conflicts of interests within the eurozone. In fact, were the ECB to grant unlimited backing to the demand for the government bonds of a member state (say, Italy), it would cause huge imbalances in the price formation mechanism—preventing correct risk assessment and causing distortions in asset pricing (i.e., Cantillon effects). In fact, this member state could access credit at an artificially lowered interest rate at the expense of other member states that would be financing themselves at relatively higher interest rates. Moreover, the fact of ensuring relatively lower interest rates on a member state’s government bonds would force risk-averse investors—in pursuit of higher yields (consistent with their risk and intertemporal preferences and with the natural formation of interest rates)—to perform riskier investments, thus artificially dragging down yields and also increasing the prices of riskier bonds—hence causing malinvestment and bubbles. MMTers and Monetary Nationalists The second vein of criticism raised against the ECB as an alleged imperfect LoLR is that of the MMTers and monetary nationalists. Here the idea is that a full-fledged LoLR should carry out outright deficit monetization—granting governments high-powered money to be directly spent either on purchasing goods and services or on transfers to citizens (i.e., helicopter money). Again, this second argument is flawed for two reasons. First, were central banks to grow the monetary base via direct purchases of goods and services instead of purchases of bonds (the so-called open market operations), they would lose their power to control the newly issued monetary base. In this economically absurd scenario, central banks, issuing a liability (i.e., monetary base) without acquiring a corresponding asset, would intuitively debase the issued currency—which would be circulating in greater amount while being “backed” by an unvaried amount of assets—and would lose the ability to withdraw that currency by way of asset selling. Therefore, the only possible outcome would be CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation (instead of the capital goods and asset inflation that we have been experiencing because of various QEs) unless the involved government were to credibly promise to withdraw the excess currency—by way of fiscal surpluses (i.e., taxation greater than government spending). In other words, even in the perverted and distorted MMT framework, debt monetization would cause inflation unless it were accompanied by a credible promise of fiscal austerity. Second, there is no central bank in the Western world performing the LoLR role as MMTers and monetary nationalists conceive of it. In this regard, the ECB operates exactly in the same legal framework (article 21.1 of the ECB Statute, Article 123.1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of EU) as the Fed does (Federal Reserve Act, Section 14, Article 2, bulletpoint b, number 1). Both are legally prohibited from monetizing government deficits, just like any other Western central bank. Conclusion First, it is untrue that providing liquidity to governments and/or low interest rates on government bonds is a duty of a full-fledged LoLR. Rather, the classical economic theory has always labeled central banks as “LoLR” only, and simply, in so far as they guaranteed operational continuity of a fractional reserve banking system. Second, the ECB performs its role as a full-fledged LoLR exactly as every other Western central bank does and consistently with the European institutional and political framework, which features a confederal monetary policy but several national fiscal policies, thus requiring checks and balances so as to avoid moral hazards and surreptitious transfers within the monetary union. The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!

Origins of Uranus’ oddities explained by Japanese astronomers

The ice giant Uranus’ unusual attributes have long puzzled scientists. All of the planets in the solar system revolve around the sun in the same direction and in the same plane, which astronomers believe is a vestige of how our solar system formed from a spinning disc of gas and dust. Most of the planets also rotate in the same direction, with their poles orientated perpendicular to the plane in which the planets revolve. However, uniquely among all the planets, Uranus is tilted at about 98 degrees. Instead of thinking about the reality of stars spread in all directions and at various distances from the Earth, it is easier to understand by envisioning the celestial sphere. To picture what the celestial sphere is, look up at the night sky and imagine that all of the stars you see are painted on the inside of a sphere surrounding the solar system. Stars then seem to rise and set as the Earth moves relative to this “sphere.” As Uranus rotates and orbits the sun, it keeps its poles aimed at fixed points with relation to this sphere, so it appears to roll around and wobble from an Earth observer’s perspective. Uranus also has a ring system like Saturn’s, and a slew of 27 moons that orbit around its equator; thus, they are also tipped relative to the plane of the ecliptic. The origins of Uranus’ unusual set of properties has now been explained by a research team led by Professor Shigeru Ida from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Their study suggests that early in the history of our solar system, Uranus was struck by a small, icy planet roughly one to three times the mass of the Earth, which tipped the young planet over and left behind its idiosyncratic moon and ring system as a smoking gun. The team came to this conclusion while constructing a novel computer simulation of moon formation around icy planets. Most of the planets in the solar system have moons of different sizes, orbits, compositions and other properties, which scientists believe can help explain how they formed. There is strong evidence that Earth’s own single moon formed when a rocky Mars-sized body hit the early Earth almost 4.5 billion years ago. This idea explains a great deal about the Earth and the moon’s composition, and the way the moon orbits Earth. Scientists expect such massive collisions were more common in the early solar system; indeed, they are part of the story of how all planets are thought to form. But Uranus must have experienced impacts that were very different from Earth simply because Uranus formed so much farther from the sun. Since the Earth formed closer to the sun, where the environment was hotter, it is mostly made of what scientists call ‘non-volatile’ elements, meaning they don’t form gases at normal Earth-surface pressures and temperatures; they are made of rock. In contrast, the outermost planets are largely composed of volatile elements like water and ammonia. Even though these are gases or liquids under Earth-surface temperatures and pressures, at vast distances from the sun, they are frozen into solid ice. According to professor Ida and his colleagues’ study, giant impacts on distant icy planets would be completely different from those involving rocky planets, such as the impact scientists believe formed Earth’s moon. Because water ice forms at low temperatures, the impact debris from Uranus and its icy impactor would have mostly vaporized during the collision. This may have also been true for the rocky material involved in Earth’s moon-forming impact, but in contrast, this rocky material had a very high condensation temperature, meaning it solidified quickly, and thus Earth’s moon was able to collect a significant amount of the debris created by the collision due to its own gravity. In the case of Uranus, a large, icy impactor was able to tilt the planet, give it a rapid rotation period (Uranus’ day is presently about 17 hours, even faster than Earth’s), and the leftover material from the collision remained gaseous longer. The largest mass body, which would become Uranus, then collected most of the leftovers, and thus, Uranus’ moons are small. To be precise, the ratio of Uranus’ mass to Uranus’ moons’ masses is greater than the ratio of Earth’s mass to its moon by a factor of more than 100. Ida and colleagues’ model beautifully reproduces the current configuration of Uranus’ satellites. Professor Ida says, “This model is the first to explain the configuration of Uranus’ moon system, and it may help explain the configurations of other icy planets in our solar system such as Neptune. Beyond this, astronomers have now discovered thousands of planets around other stars, so-called exoplanets, and observations suggest that many of the newly discovered planets known as super-Earths in exoplanetary systems may consist largely of water ice, and this model can also be applied to these planets.” The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!

What makes Saturn’s atmosphere so hot

The upper layers in the atmospheres of gas giants—Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune—are hot, just like Earth’s. But unlike Earth, the Sun is too far from these outer planets to account for the high temperatures. Their heat source has been one of the great mysteries of planetary science. New analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finds a viable explanation for what’s keeping the upper layers of Saturn, and possibly the other gas giants, so hot: auroras at the planet’s north and south poles. Electric currents, triggered by interactions between solar winds and charged particles from Saturn’s moons, spark the auroras and heat the upper atmosphere. (As with Earth’s northern lights, studying auroras tells scientists what’s going on in the planet’s atmosphere.) The work, published today in Nature Astronomy, is the most complete mapping yet of both temperature and density of a gas giant’s upper atmosphere—a region that has been poorly understood. “Understanding the dynamics really requires a global view. This dataset is the first time we’ve been able to look at the upper atmosphere from pole to pole while also seeing how temperature changes with depth,” said Zarah Brown, lead author of the study and a graduate student in the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. By building a complete picture of how heat circulates in the atmosphere, scientists are better able to understand how auroral electric currents heat the upper layers of Saturn’s atmosphere and drive winds. The global wind system can distribute this energy, which is initially deposited near the poles toward the equatorial regions, heating them to twice the temperatures expected from the sun’s heating alone. “The results are vital to our general understanding of planetary upper atmospheres and are an important part of Cassini’s legacy,” said study co-author Tommi Koskinen, a member of Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectograph team. “They help address the question of why the uppermost part of the atmosphere is so hot, while the rest of the atmosphere—due to the large distance from the Sun—is cold.” Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Cassini was an orbiter that observed Saturn for more than 13 years before exhausting its fuel supply. The mission plunged it into the planet’s atmosphere in September 2017, in part to protect its moon Enceladus, which Cassini discovered might hold conditions suitable for life. But before its plunge, Cassini performed 22 ultra-close orbits of Saturn, a final tour called the Grand Finale. It was during the Grand Finale that the key data was collected for the new temperature map of Saturn’s atmosphere. For six weeks, Cassini targeted several bright stars in the constellations of Orion and Canis Major as they passed behind Saturn. As the spacecraft observed the stars rise and set behind the giant planet, scientists analyzed how the starlight changed as it passed through the atmosphere. Measuring how dense the atmosphere is gave scientists the information they needed to find the temperatures. Density decreases with altitude, and the rate of decrease depends on temperature. They found that temperatures peak near the auroras, indicating that auroral electric currents heat the upper atmosphere. Density and temperature measurements together helped scientists figure out wind speeds. Understanding Saturn’s upper atmosphere, where planet meets space, is key to understanding space weather and its impact on other planets in our solar system and exoplanets around other stars. “Even though thousands of exoplanets have been found, only the planets in our solar system can be studied in this kind of detail. Thanks to Cassini, we have a more detailed picture of Saturn’s upper atmosphere right now than any other giant planet in the universe,” Brown said. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!

Pennsylvania nursing home presuming all 800 residents are infected with COVID-19

All 800 residents and staff of a Beaver County, Pennsylvania, nursing home are presumed to have the coronavirus, according to a KDKA-TV report Tuesday. What are the details? The Brighton Rehabilitation & Wellness Center says that all staff and patients will be treated as if they are infected with COVID-19 and are proceeding with such measures in order to protect all inside the facility, the station reported. A union representative from the assisted living facility said at least 42 patients and 10 employees tested positive. At the time of this writing, five people from the facility have died, according to The Times. The nursing home is directing all residents to isolate and treat symptoms. A statement from the nursing facility read, "Thinking about the virus in this way allows us to be more protective of asymptomatic staff and residents." "By presuming every staff member and resident may be positive and treating symptoms, not test results, we are doing what we believe every facility and every person in the nation should do," a follow-up statement continued. "We are not saying that every person in our facility — any more than every person on a cruise ship, who went to a certain party or who lives in New York City — is positive." What else? Pennsylvania's Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, said that seniors are at great risk of contracting COVID-19. "Seniors living in long-term care living facilities ... are at great risk in relation to this pandemic of COVID-19," Levine said on Friday, according to the Times. "They're older, and older individuals are more likely to suffer more serious complications, and are more likely to have other medical conditions that could make them more vulnerable." She added, "We're looking to contract with a company that will help us and serve as almost a nursing home SWAT team that could go out and help a nursing home that might be having difficulty in helping them with their infection control. We want to do everything we can to protect the health and safety of nursing home staff and nursing home residents."

'Call of Duty: Warzone' is introducing four-player squads

Just as Apex Legends is getting a permanent duos mode to complement the long-standing trios option, Call of Duty: Warzone is stepping in the opposite direction by letting you drop into the map with four players in your squad. The quads option will be available in the battle royale and plunder modes April 8th, when season 3 gets underway in both that game and CoD: Modern Warfare multiplayer. As you'd probably expect, Warzone will add more weapons and skins when season 3 starts, including silenced and non-silenced versions of every weapon type. Expect to find new guns and blueprints in supply boxes along with more modes and playlists throughout the season that affect what types of loot are available. For instance, you'll be able to hop into games in which sniper rifles and shotguns are your only weapon options. PS Plus subscribers, meanwhile, can snag some extra, exclusive gear for free with the season 3 Combat Pack.

Johnson & Johnson: ‘Temporary Shortage’ Of Tylenol In Some Areas Of US

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – It’s becoming a rare sight on some pharmacy shelves — Tylenol. The drug is selling out or is being rationed in many stores because of a belief that it might be the best way to fight COVID-19. Dr. Parham Eftekari is a nephrologist and an internal medicine physician. He said Tylenol is preferred for fever over non-steroidal, anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen. “It is safer to give Tylenol or acetaminophen for fever,” he said. “Try to stay away from the non-steroidal. Non-steroidals are good for arthritis, headaches, migraines sometimes, but prolonged use of it definitely has adverse outcomes for the heart, the kidney and now, recent evidence shows, possible immune system.” Eftekari said research is still being done, but initial research shows drugs like ibuprofen could make COVID-19 worse for some patients. “Use of anti-fever medication can actually inhibit some of the cell function that can portably worsen outcomes in COVID-19,” he said. A spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, acknowledged the shortage and said the company is working to overcome it. “We are experiencing record high demand for Tylenol, and despite our producing and shipping product at historic highs, we are experiencing a temporary shortage in some regions in the US,” said Kim Montagnino, Global Corporate Media Relations Senior Director. “We are committed to maintaining our increased production, including running lines up to 24/7 to maximize supply.” Johnson & Johnson said they’re working to keep the drug available and are encouraging stores to put limits on how much Tylenol people can buy. That’s what CBS4 News saw at a Broward Walgreens, where the Tylenol Extra Strength is kept behind the counter. We checked online and we couldn’t get most versions of Tylenol online at Walgreens, Target or CVS. A Walgreen’s spokesperson said they’re aware of the demand for Tylenol and they do have enough to meet customer’s needs. Pharmacist Howard Fisher said they still have some bottles of Tylenol on the shelves at Medical III Pharmacy in Plantation. But that’s all they’ve got. “When you go to re-order it, it’s not available,” he explained. “We have what we have.” Fisher said he’s told it will be awhile before they can get more. “Like the end of the month,” he said. If you’re looking for Tylenol, Fisher suggested purchasing acetaminophen, the generic version of Tylenol. Also, he said try calling some of the smaller pharmacies to see if they have Tylenol in stock. Fisher also suggested that if you have kids and have children’s Tylenol at home, you could figure out an adult dosage. Dr. Eftekari recommends trying to shop in the morning when the shelves at many stores are re-stocked. RELATED: Current Curfews In South Florida Drive-Through Testing Locations Track The Spread Of The Coronavirus In Real Time How To Make Your Own Face Mask

Verizon refuses to give DSL users its low-income deals during pandemic

Verizon is one of numerous home-Internet providers offering temporarily free service to low-income households during the pandemic. But a big restriction on Verizon's offer makes it impossible for many people to get the deal. The Verizon problem is one of several that's been pointed out by advocates for poor people at the nonprofit National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). Charter, CenturyLink, and Frontier have also been labeled disappointments even as Comcast earned praise. The NDIA is maintaining a list of pandemic-related telecom offers. A similar group called EveryoneOn offers a search tool to find low-income offers by ZIP code. Verizon on March 23 said it would provide two months of free home-Internet and phone service for current low-income subscribers in the Lifeline program and $20 monthly discounts for new low-income subscribers. The $20 discount lowers the starting price for 200Mbps Internet to $19.99 a month. But the broadband offers are available only on Verizon's fiber-to-the-home FiOS service and not in DSL areas where Verizon never upgraded homes from copper to fiber. When contacted by Ars, Verizon said "our DSL service does not meet the Lifeline program qualification standard," referring to the 10Mbps to 20Mbps speed standards imposed by the FCC's Lifeline program, which reimburses ISPs for discounts provided to low-income people. But while the 60 days of free service applies to existing Lifeline customers, the $20 discounts for new FiOS customers apparently apply to low-income subscribers even if they're not officially using Lifeline plans. "We do appreciate that Verizon has a discount offer," NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer told Ars. "The discount offer is using Lifeline to verify eligibility, but [Verizon has] confirmed with us that it is not Lifeline, so why limit where the discount is available? Plus, Lifeline's qualification standards allow for service to be provided at less than the [speed] standard if that is all that is available. By not including DSL, their most vulnerable customers are being left out of a valuable resource. This includes the low-income communities in underserved cities such as Buffalo and Baltimore." Verizon would probably rather not add more customers to its outdated DSL network. But the telco doesn't upgrade areas to fiber when it determines the potential profits aren't worth the investment, leaving people in DSL areas in a precarious situation. By limiting its two-free-months offer to current Lifeline subscribers, Verizon is preventing poor people who didn't previously sign up for service from getting free broadband during the pandemic. That's in contrast to other ISPs that are giving free service to low-income subscribers who sign up now, in recognition of the pandemic's impact on poor people who didn't already have broadband at home because they couldn't afford it. Verizon's two-free-months offer is only available to customers who had a Verizon Lifeline plan as of March 20. It isn't just a few big ISPs making better offers. A North Dakota-based cooperative called BEK Communications is giving four free months of fiber service to new subscribers, for example. About 73 percent of US adults have broadband at home, a Pew Research Center report says. "Racial minorities, older adults, rural residents, and those with lower levels of education and income are less likely to have broadband service at home," Pew says. Low-income access varies greatly by region Verizon is among hundreds of ISPs that signed the Federal Communications Commission's "Keeping Americans Connected" pledge, meaning they promised to waive late fees, to not terminate service when customers miss payments due to the coronavirus pandemic, and to open Wi-Fi hotspots to the public. But the pledge is voluntary, and the FCC's hands-off approach to telecom regulation leaves the broadband industry in charge of whether to give low-income people access during the pandemic. Aside from that pledge and pre-existing programs for low-income subscribers such as Lifeline, some major ISPs haven't made any pandemic-specific offers to poor people. ISPs with no pandemic-specific offers of free or discounted service for poor people include CenturyLink, Frontier, and Cincinnati Bell. Offers to hook up poor people during the pandemic thus vary greatly by region, depending on which ISP is dominant locally. "We've looked at this every which way. We don't see any alternative to a federal broadband subsidy during the health crisis," Siefer said. "Setting aside all the ways that Internet keeps a household functioning during this health crisis, if people do not have Internet, they will certainly not stay in their homes. The digital divide is now a public safety issue." Advocacy group Free Press urged ISPs "to waive all billing for low-income households, seniors, furloughed workers, and households with public-school students who have been sent home due to school closures." When contacted by Ars, Frontier pointed to its pre-existing low-income programs such as Lifeline and said it "is working on a case-by-case basis with small businesses that may have been impacted or forced to close; school districts and rural healthcare facilities that may require additional bandwidth; and will continue evaluating options to assist customers through this difficult period." CenturyLink also pointed to its pre-existing low-income programs and said it is "suspending data usage limits for residential customers due to COVID-19." That's not actually a major change—while CenturyLink technically imposed a 1TB monthly limit, it didn't charge overage fees. When asked why it isn't making special pandemic-related offers to low-income people, Cincinnati Bell told Ars that it "will not attempt to proactively build market share through special promotions that are aimed at our competitors and that consequently necessitate foot traffic from our field technicians." However, the company told us that it has reconnected 400 customer accounts that were previously suspended because of late payments. Siefer said Cincinnati Bell's choice to "avoid new customer signups is shortsighted... community members in Cincinnati Bell territory who can't bank, pay bills, or shop at home must go out to stores, ATMs, payment centers, and mailboxes. People who need medical care but can't use telehealth tools are far more likely to show up at badly stressed emergency rooms and clinics or else go without care—which could be a deadly choice in this situation." Windstream is offering two free months to new Lifeline customers. Comcast does “tremendous job” AT&T—which has a similar mix of fiber and DSL offerings as Verizon, CenturyLink, Frontier, and Cincinnati Bell—has done more to help poor people through the public-health emergency that has caused millions of job losses and a huge increase in people working at home. AT&T is offering two free months of home-Internet service to customers who order its low-income plan by April 30. After the free two months, prices are $5 a month for download speeds of 3Mbps or less and $10 a month for speeds up to 10Mbps. AT&T said it is also expanding eligibility to cover more low-income households and waiving data-overage fees. "Other than the AT&T plan having slow speeds and not allowing those with bad debt to be eligible, we do not have complaints," Siefer told us. "If a household has outstanding debt with AT&T for fixed Internet service within the last six months, they are ineligible." Comcast, of all companies, "is doing a tremendous job," Siefer said. Comcast made its $10-per-month Internet Essentials plan free to new low-income customers for two months and raised speeds from 15Mbps download/2Mbps upload to 25Mbps/3Mbps. Comcast is also temporarily accepting low-income people into Internet Essentials even if they have outstanding debt owed to Comcast. Comcast also temporarily waived data caps. Problems in Charter territory Charter, the second-biggest Internet provider in the United States after Comcast, is giving new customers with children in school free Internet access for 60 days. But the company faced criticism from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for not letting customers with unpaid bills take advantage of the free service during the pandemic. Charter partially relented, saying it would make the free offer "available to New York customers with outstanding balances." But the unpaid-bills restriction is apparently still in place in the other 40 states where Charter offers service. In a blog post, the NDIA listed several other shortcomings in Charter's approach. One problem is that customers who get the two-free-months offer are not enrolled into a low-income plan after the two months are up, even if they are eligible. Charter sells a "Spectrum Internet Assist" program to low-income people for $18 a month but apparently it isn't making this option easily available to people taking advantage of the free-two-months offer. "We are hearing repeatedly that people who try to sign up for the free two months are being told they will be charged $50 for service after the free two months, as if it were a promotional offer, not a crisis offer," Siefer said. Charter "could have set it up so that those households were transitioned to Spectrum Internet Assist." Because of this, it may be better in the long run for people to sign up for Internet Assist from the start instead of taking Charter's free-two-months offer. The NDIA also urged Charter to expand eligibility of Internet Assist "to more low-income households, similar to Comcast Internet Essentials" and to "Increase capacity to take phone calls requesting the free service or institute a call-back system." Shortly after the offer was first made last month, the NDIA said it was hearing stories of four-hour-long waits on hold. When contacted by Ars, a Charter spokesperson noted that "Eligibility for Charter's 60-day free offer is not limited to households eligible for Spectrum Internet Assist or even low-income households generally—it is families with children in school [K-12 or college] and professional educators, throughout our 41-state service area." After the free two months are up, "new Internet customers with our regular Internet service would receive a discounted promotional price for the next 10 months," Charter said. Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 13 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications owns Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica.

Data Science: Reality Doesn't Meet Expectations

Disclaimer: I use the term Data Scientist throughout this post; however, popular titles such as Machine Learning Engineer, Data Analyst, Data Engineers, BI analysts share similar responsibilities and could be used interchangeably here. I had high hopes about the potential impact of being a Data Scientist. I felt every company should be a “data company”. My expectations did not meet reality. Where did my expectations come from? I attended a 12-week data science bootcamp in mid-2016. 11 of the 12 weeks’ focus were on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). At this time, ML & AI news mentions had hit an all-time high. Tesla was paving the way in self-driving cars, and even older behemoths like General Motors (GM) invested over a billion dollars in an AI company to stay at the frontier of automotive tech. At the consumer level, headphones emerged that used AI to automatically translate your words to someone else as you speak, and an AI beat the world’s best esports team. I figured I’d spend most of my time buried in code and data to find hidden patterns, implement machine learning models in production and optimize them. Executives would likely rely on me to help inform the product roadmap based on insights in data, and I would be highly valued. However, practically none of that happened. Over the past few years, I’ve worked as a Data Scientist, a Data Engineer, and as an industry consultant. I’ve also learned from the stories of dozens of data scientists and similar professions, actively read articles on data science and followed data science thought leaders on Twitter. Across these diverse data experiences, I have noticed common themes. Below are seven most common (and at times flagrant) ways that data science has failed to meet expectations in industry. Throughout each section, I’ll propose solutions to these shortcomings. People don’t know what “data science” does. Data science leadership is sorely lacking. Data science can’t always be built to specs. You’re likely the only “data person.” Your impact is tough to measure — data doesn’t always translate to value. Data & infrastructure have serious quality problems. Data work can be profoundly unethical. Moral courage required. 1. People don’t know what “data science” does. Some people think “data science” is all ML, AI and/or custom algorithms. Others think it’s simply analytics. Many data scientists may spend a significant portion of their time on Extract-Transform-Load (ETL). The truth is - all of these things are possible! Due to this lack of clarity, in interviews, you can be asked about any of these topics and more! In 50+ interviews for data related jobs, I’ve been asked about AB testing, SQL analytics questions, optimizing SQL queries, how to code a game in Python, Logistic Regression, Gradient Boosted Trees, data structures and/or algorithms programming problems! It’s daunting to study a wide breadth of concepts and still have depth. Keep your chin up! Expect interviews to be confusing and frustrating, as there’s no de facto set of problems and questions. Ask your hiring managers for specific details on the interview process, technologies you’ll be asked to use and why those will be asked. The more context you have, the better you can prepare to ace it! On the job, you may be asked to solve a hard problem and have minimal to no direction on how to reach the solution. Because people don’t know what data science does, you may have to support yourself with work in devops, software engineering, data engineering, etc. If you end up as the only “data person” on the team, you may want to start building out a cohort of external mentors before you arrive on the job who can advise you as you proceed into uncharted waters. 2. Data science leadership is sorely lacking Most executives in charge of data science decision-making are neither educated nor trained in actual data science theory and techniques. Instead, they have relied upon non-data-driven, plug-and-play features that can be launched in a timely manner. Few teams have a Head of Data, Data Science Manager or other relevant role. As a Data Scientist, you may report to someone specialized in just product, engineering or even another discipline. These non-data proficient executives and managers are usually the ones to make important product decisions. In tech, top-down decision-making is still very prevalent. You may not have a “seat at the table” or be respected enough to be included in these decisions and your research may not be valued. Where does that leave you as a Data Scientist? In one experience, a fellow researcher spent over a month researching a particular value among our customers through qualitative and quantitative data. She presented a well-written and evidence-backed report. Yet, a few days later, a key head of product outlined a vision for the team and supported it with a claim that was antithetical to the researcher’s findings! Even if a data science project you advocate for is greenlighted, you may be on your own as the rare knowledgeable person to plan and execute it. It’s unlikely leadership will be hands-on to help you research and plan out the project. This could be a very difficult road ahead - especially for someone junior in the industry. 3. Data science can’t always be built to specs You and peers may have expectations on the potential of data science projects. Two common types of projects are in exploratory analyses and machine learning. In an exploratory analysis, someone or yourself may have questions on the data and you simply want to answer those. Common questions are: How many users click this button; what % of users that visit a screen click this button; how many users have signed up by region or account type? However, the data needed to answer those questions may not exist! If the data does exists, it’s likely “dirty” - undocumented, tough to find or could be factually inaccurate. It’ll be tough to work with! You could spend hours or days attempting to answer a single question only to discover that you can’t sufficiently answer it for a stakeholder. In machine learning, you may be asked to optimize some process or experience for consumers. However, there’s uncertainty with how much, if at all, the experience can be improved! In one engagement, the product had a newsfeed with posts from a large network of people - content often irrelevant for users. You may have noticed your Facebook or Twitter newsfeed content is ordered in a way to show posts most relevant to you near the top - optimized to consume the content and click through on what’s relevant. Similarly, the team I worked with was asked to optimize the feed. However, they didn’t know exactly how much the feed could be improved. The team evaluated the optimization of the feed by an evaluation metric called uCTR - unique click through rate. This is essentially the probability the user would click on the post to like it or comment on it in a session. Executives had expectations that the experience would be drastically improved. The machine learning team did improve the metric by over 50% - but only for a small group of users who were very engaged because there was more signal in the data to improve that group’s experience. The majority of users still had a bad viewing experience even after the ML model was implemented! 50% seems significant but may be rather insignificant too. It’s high on a relative change but still can be a small absolute change. Picture this: you have 10 dollars in cash and you increase it by 50% in a day. You now have 15 dollars in cash. Yet that’s still a small number on an absolute scale. You can only buy 1 or 2 meals out! Since many ML projects may not be built to the expectations of teams, most projects likely don’t make it into production. 4. You’re likely the only “data person” Nearly every team in a business will want to know their progress through quantitative measures. All teams, whether sales, customer support, engineering, or marketing, want metrics and data-driven dashboards to measure their efficacy and progress. Most companies with <100 employees have few employees who are proficient in SQL, databases, data analysis and data visualizations. These are skills necessary to analyze data and produce these dashboard outputs. As the resident Data Scientist, you may become easily inundated with requests from multiple teams at once. Be prepared to ask these teams to qualify and defend their requests, and be prepared to say “no” if their needs fall outside the scope of your actual priority queue. I’d recommend utilizing the RICE prioritization technique for projects. Moreover, you may quickly realize much of this work is repetitive and while time-consuming, is “easy”. In fact, most analyses involve a great deal of time to understand the data, clean it and organize it. You may spend a minimal amount of time doing the “fun” parts that data scientists think of: complex statistics, machine learning and experimentation with tangible results. 5. Your impact is tough to measure — data doesn’t always translate to value Two ways to interpret this section’s header come to mind. For one, Data Scientists are often in “support” roles. Most organizations make the majority of their decisions on intuition that stems from past readings and personal experiences - not from a Data Scientist’s analyses. I’d be shocked if you could find a small to medium size organization that acted otherwise. Generally, you want to err on the side of being decisive rather than being overly cautious in order to succeed in business. (Though, this can backfire on you.) As a Data Scientist in the org, are you essential to the business? Probably not. The business could go on for a while and survive without you. Sales will still be made, features will still get built, customer support will handle customer concerns, etc. When I first started, I thought I’d be incredibly valued as the gatekeeper for helping justify business decisions. However, that was rarely the case. DJ Patil, the former Chief Data Scientist at the White House, once stated in a podcast episode that you as a Data Scientist should try to find a situation to be incredibly valuable on the job! It’s tough to find that from the outskirts of applying to jobs, but internally, you can make inroads supporting stakeholders with evidence for their decisions! Another challenge being usually a “support” role in a company is quantifying your impact. A common data science task is to help a Product Manager answer a question about some recent activity in the data. You can also issue a product recommendation based on your insights. So what? How do you measure whether this work of yours was impactful? It’s tough to do. Most people don’t put a price or value on analyses. Did you save the company 10 million dollars through your analysis for the sales team that led them to avoiding a huge and costly new workflow, or did the sales team save the 10 million dollars? Truthfully, will anyone even value the 10 million dollars if it was simply “saved” and never spent? On the job, I’d recommend you document your work well and calculate the monetary value of your analyses based on factors like employee salary, capital investments, opportunity cost, etc. These analyses will come in handy for a promotion/review packet later too. I realize the actual analysis is challenging to do and I’ve only heard of one data science manager who executed on this well with his team! Seek help from others on how to best craft these analyses. 6. Data & infrastructure have serious quality problems In data science books, online classes, online tutorials, and Kaggle competitions, the problems faced are radically different from what exists in industry. In those online resources, you’ll have “clean” data that’s easily available, well-documented, and structured in an outline that allows you to apply data science techniques to answer the problem. In regards to quality of data on the job, I’d often compare it to a garbage bag that ripped, had its content spewed all over the ground and your partner has asked you to find a beautiful earring that was accidentally inside. Essentially, the data will be tough to find and poorly documented — or not documented at all. Data can also be presented in unstructured formats such as complicated JSON, submitted text responses with punctuation, emojis, and minimal context. Moreover, data that seems helpful can prove to be a red herring. Like the famous saying, “garbage in, garbage out”. If you don’t have quality data, you likely won’t produce a quality output to meet your stakeholders’ expectation. Cleaning data may likely become the majority of your work. In 2016, a survey distributed to experienced Data Scientists by the popular ML-focused company Crowdflower claimed “3 out of every 5 data scientists we surveyed actually spend the most time cleaning and organizing data”. The Data Scientist, in many cases, should be called the Data Janitor. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Note, if you spend most of your time on data cleaning, that’s very little time left for coding, studying ML, and conducting analyses. Have been extremely curious about this for a while now, so I decided to create a poll. "As someone titled 'data scientist' in 2019, I spend most of (60%+) my time:" ("Other") also welcome, add it in the replies. — Vicki Boykis (@vboykis) January 28, 2019 In addition to “dirty data”, another major challenge is handling data with poor infrastructure. Imagine a busy highway with lots of potholes, toll booths, and traffic. Your job is to somehow navigate these treacherous conditions to supply data insights at the end. Image from the Insight Extractor - Blog. You may be faced with a database that isn’t optimized for your queries or unable to identify the source of truth in the data through its data lineage. You may wait days or weeks to get access to a database or be stuck with poor infrastructure because people are afraid to change it for fear of breaking everything! There may be no centralized data store, multiple dashboard tools used making it difficult to find information, and no repository for past data science work. When I worked at Target HQ in 2012, employees would arrive to work early - often around 7am - in order to query the database at a time when few others were doing so. They hoped they’d get database results quicker. Yet, they’d still often wait several hours just to get results. The traffic jam was real! Even my friends at big tech startups have complained about the same problems with data infrastructure and technical debt. One friend had to come to work on Saturdays just to be able to query the data without extreme wait times. Imagine wanting to investigate a hunch in the data and having to wait hours for it! Then, imagine you made a mistake in the SQL query, had to re-implement it and wait hours again! That’s practically waiting a whole day without even getting the data! On the job, if you notice poor infrastructure, speak up to your manager early on. Clearly document the problem, and try to incorporate a data engineering, infrastructure, or devops team to help resolve the issue! I'd also encourage you to learn these skills too! 7. Data work can be profoundly unethical. Moral courage required This is the scariest of concerns for me. I have seen and heard of shady practices of collecting and analyzing private user data, from their private messages to their every interaction on the app. As a Data Scientist, you likely won’t have ethics training or a say in product decisions made regarding them. Uber is infamous for a secret internal tool called Greyball built to evade law enforcement. The tool could help identify law enforcement officials in their respective cities and provide them a “fake” Uber experience to show riders but no one would pick them up. What if you were the Data Scientist tasked with predicting who’s a law enforcement official or modifying the core driver routing algorithm to evade these individuals? Would you do it? The recommendations of an ML model can also be unethical. I once worked on an engagement in which ML predictions were provided to consumers. These predictions were created based on flawed practices in ML model training and there was very little signal in the data. Later, the paying customers complained about how poor the recommendations were, yet the company never publicly apologized. There may come a time when an ecommerce company asks you as a Data Scientist: “If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn’t want us to know, can you do that?” These were the exact words spoken to one only a few years ago at Target! But what are the ethical implications of figuring this out? Would you as a consumer want you and your family to be marketed this way? What if the significant other doesn’t know if their partner is pregnant? What if they’re considering an abortion? At companies, especially smaller ones, these ethical concerns may not be taken into consideration! Conclusion: Where Does This Leave Us? I don’t want to discourage people from applying to data science jobs. They can be incredibly impactful towards the company’s mission. Rather, try to ask about these concerns in interview questions to help you evaluate your next role. If you’re on the job and already facing these issues, work with your manager or coworkers to try and resolve them asap to improve your job experience. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback on this post: dan [@] dfrieds.com Additional and somewhat similar articles to this are: If you're interested in hiring me for data engineering or science, please reach out: dan [@] dfrieds.com. I’d like to thank Naveed Nadjmabadi, Steve Dean, Andrew Ju, Julia Xu, Em deGrandpré, and Canzhi Ye for their advice on drafts.

For Alzheimer's Patients And Their Families, Coronavirus Can Mean Loving From Afar

For Alzheimer's Patients And Their Families, Coronavirus Can Mean Loving From Afar Enlarge this image toggle caption Biggie Productions/Getty Images Biggie Productions/Getty Images Before coronavirus, Ken Gregersen spent most days with his wife, Evie, who has Alzheimer's and lives in a care facility near Des Moines, Iowa. "I would go and give her breakfast, lunch and dinner practically every day," Gregersen says. "We're a very close couple and we've been married 67 years." Then the facility began restricting visits as part of an effort to protect its residents from coronavirus. It's been nearly three weeks since Gregersen, 88, has seen his wife, who is in the late stages of Alzheimer's, in person. Instead, he makes virtual visits two or three times a week, when a nurse has time to link the couple through FaceTime or Skype. "She's at a point where she doesn't open her eyes or talk," Gregersen says. "But I hope she recognizes my voice when I talk to her." toggle caption Ken Gregersen As hard as the separation is, though, he supports the decision to keep visitors away. "I would love to be able to be with her and see her and feed her and give her a hug," Gregersen says. "But we all are aware of what happened in the state of Washington, where the coronavirus was in a care facility and it caused a lot of deaths." It's a conundrum faced by the families of more than 1 million people who have Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia and no longer live at home. "We've gotten a lot of calls on our help line where people are unable to visit their family member who is living in an assisted living or in a nursing home, and it's really devastating to them," says Beth Kallmyer, vice president of care and support at the Alzheimer's Association. "And one of the things that we're telling them is, listen, this is for their safety and their health." Alzheimer's itself does not make a person more susceptible to coronavirus. But because most patients are older than 65 and many have health problems like diabetes or heart disease, they are far more likely to die from the infection than younger, healthier people. Also, Alzheimer's patients in care facilities have no way to completely isolate themselves from infection. They often depend on staff to help them bathe, get dressed, and eat. Gregersen says that's true of his wife. "There will be people who are who are out in the world and then are around her," he says. "There's no way to isolate her from that risk." The way Alzheimer's affects memory and thinking can impair a person's ability to protect themselves from infection, Kallmyer says. "Most of them would not understand the need for washing hands or other things to avoid the virus," she says. So friends and family members should try to give Alzheimer's patients "the information that you think that they can take in," Kallmyer says. "And then just respond to them, you know, on an emotional level and make sure that you talk to them about you're gonna be OK." The Alzheimer's Association is also urging families who can't visit anymore to communicate with the caregivers on site. And that's something Gregersen does regularly. "I know almost every caregiver there," he says, "the certified nursing assistants, the nurses and the food servers and so forth. We're on a first name basis." Gregersen hopes to see his wife in person again. She's in the late stages of Alzheimer's and in hospice care. But with coronavirus continuing to spread, he isn't sure when, or if, that will happen.

The Sacred Triduum: The Mass of Maundy Thursday and the Altar of Repose

Due to the length and complexities of the rituals of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, I will break each day up into two parts. It is particularly interesting to me how the rituals of the two days are so intimately intertwined that the Good Friday liturgies cannot take place without the things that occur on Maundy Thursday. The rituals of the Mass on these two days are also probably the most theologically difficult for us Anglicans, and are the aspects that will cause the most argument among us not just for the Triduum but the theology of the the Eucharist as a whole. The way we receive or reject the ancient rituals of the Mass here will define clearly what we actually believe about the Eucharist beyond trite and vague lip service about the “real presence” or “sacramental priesthood”. The real question is whether the Eucharist is a sacrifice, and whether the presbytery is sacerdotal. For the first part of Maundy Thursday I will examine the main of the Mass and the procession to the Altar of Repose. In the second part I will examine the Vespers and Stripping of the Altar that occurs after the procession, and the ritual of the Washing of the Feet that occurs after the altar stripped of its furnishings. Maundy Thursday, as Holy Thursday is popularly known in English, derives its name from the first word sung in the ritual of the Washing of the Feet: “Mandatum”. But for all the great importance of the Maundy ritual as an imitation of how Christ washed the Apostles’ feet, it would be a mistake to emphasize the Washing as the heart of Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday is chiefly significant for being the day of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and as such is also the day of the institution of the Christian priesthood. As the rituals of the Mass will show, there are distinctive changes made to the regular order of the Mass which stress the character of the day. Theologically, sacramentally, and eschatologically, Maundy Thursday begins the liturgical “repetition” of the mysterium paschale that concludes on Easter Sunday. The Mass of The Lord’s Supper The Mass of the Lord’s Supper is treated as a festal feast of the Lord. Accordingly, the altar furnishings, which were purple at the Tenebrae of Maundy Thursday as it has been through Passiontide, are changed to white. The altar and the sacred ministers will be clothed in the best white vestments, and the altar cross will also be veiled in a white cover. The unbleached candles on the altar will also be replaced with bleached wax. The processional cross, however, is veiled in purple. The festal hymn, Gloria in excelsis Deo (“Glory be to God on high; And in earth peace…”), which had been omitted through Lent, is sung at the beginning of the Mass. The singing of the hymn is accompanied with the ringing of all the bells of the church. After the Gloria is sung the bells remain silent until the Easter Vigil. The kiss of peace is not given. Dom Gueranger interprets this omission as a symbolic remembrance of Judas’ treacherous kiss on this day. The ritual of the Mass otherwise remains largely identical to an ordinary Mass but for the following distinctions: For the Mass of the Lord’s Supper two large “priest” Hosts are prepared, and a second chalice is specially prepared with its own paten and pall. A white veil and ribbon are also prepared with this second chalice. Both large Hosts are to be kept together from the offertory, and are consecrated together by the celebrant. The Canon of the Mass (“The Roman Canon”, often called “The Gregorian Canon” by Anglicans) is adjusted slightly to stress that the Eucharist was instituted on this very day. Only one of the consecrated Hosts are fractured and used to commune, the other Host being reserved. After the celebrant has made his communion, the deacon brings the second chalice with its accoutrements to the altar and the priest will carefully place the second Host into this chalice. The deacon will then cover the chalice with the pall, and then the pall with the paten upside down. This is all then be covered with the white veil, and fastened with the ribbon around the stem of the chalice. This specially prepared chalice is left on the corporal, where it will remain to the end of Mass. The sacred ministers genuflect, and continue on to commune the rest of the church. The rest of the Mass is celebrated with the principles followed when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed as at Benediction. The second Host is prepared in the chalice in this special way for use at the Mass of Good Friday the next day, and this ritual is the main reason for why the liturgy of Good Friday cannot be performed properly without the rituals of Maundy Thursday. The link between these two Masses also reflect the intimate relationship between the Lord’s Supper and the Crucifixion (recall how even Cranmer’s Eucharistic prayer in the Prayer Book begins by first referencing Christ’s death on the Cross at some length before ever mentioning the Christ’s institution of the Supper). Not only is the same Host used, but also the same chalice, pall, paten, and veil. When all genuflect at the reading of “And the Word was made flesh” at the Last Gospel, the priest turns towards the Sacrament enclosed in the chalice. The Procession to the Altar of Repose With the Mass concluded, the sacred ministers take off their maniples, and the celebrant takes off the chasuble. The priest is then fitted with a white cope. The ministers return to the altar, prostrate, and kneel on the lowest step. The priest then puts incense into two thuribles with no blessings given, and censes the Sacrament as at Benediction. The priest is then fitted with a humeral veil, after which the deacon rises up to the altar to bring the chalice to the priest, who receives it kneeling. He holds the chalice through the humeral veil as the monstrance is at Benediction, though with the right hand laying over top of it. The whole altar party and attending clergy form a solemn procession to the Altar of Repose, with the laity in front. Both the laity and attending clergy hold candles, and the sacred ministers walk under a canopy held over them. The two thurifers go immediately before the Sacrament, swinging the two thuribles that were imposed with incense earlier. During this procession it become customary for the choir to sing the hymn Pange lingua, the great Medieval hymn composed by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi. The penultimate verse (“Tantum ergo sacramentum…” [“Therefore the great sacrament…”]) shouldn’t begin until the priest arrives at the Altar of Repose. The Altar of Repose is a lesser altar of the church that is specially prepared for the day. It is not to be in the sanctuary, and should have some distance from the High Altar if possible. The Altar of Repose is not actually used as an altar, although for practical reasons it will generally be an altar in a side chapel if such a thing exists in the church. In any case, the Altar of Repose does not have to be a consecrated altar, and all that is essential is a special urn in which the chalice with the reserved Host may rest within. It must be able to enclose the chalice within entirely. If a side altar is used, the urn can be replaced with an empty tabernacle. The Altar of Repose is furnished with a white frontal, and a corporal spread before the urn. It is then customarily decorated with candles and flowers. Fortescue notes that the Memoriale rituum formally requests the presence of flowers. When thought in connection to the Gospel narratives, my guess is that the insistence on the floral decoration of the Altar of Repose is because the place of repose is supposed to serve as a representation of the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ went immediately after the Last Supper to pray accompanied by the Apostles Peter, John, and James. This connection would also help to also make sense of the consecrated Host reserved in the chalice, as we can interpret it as a symbolic representation of Christ in the agony of the Passion, which Christ himself refers to as a “cup” (“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me…” and “O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.”–both from Matthew 26). When the procession arrives at the Altar of Repose they all kneel, except for the altar party. The priest stands before the Altar of Repose and the deacon, kneeling, receives the chalice and places it in the urn, which is left open. The celebrant and subdeacon kneel, and the hymn Pange lingua is continued from the verse “Tantum ergo sacramentum”. The celebrant imposes incense in the first thurible and censes the chalice again. The deacon then rises up to the altar, genuflects, and closes the urn. All the candles held by the servers, attending clergy, and laity are extinguished. The attending clergy and laity first prostrate, then return to the main church. The sacred ministers also prostrate, then then return to the sacristy with the servers. The priest is there relieved of the humeral veil and cope, and all the sacred ministers remove their Eucharistic vestments and put on purple stoles. The next entry will continue with the rituals of the Stripping of the Altar and the Washing of the Feet.

Coronavirus: 224 Singapore residents evacuated from Cairo as Egypt suspends all commercial flights

SINGAPORE - A total of 224 Singapore residents have been evacuated from Cairo after Egypt suspended all commercial flight services. Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on Wednesday (April 8) that it had arranged, with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis), a repatriation flight for the Singapore residents to return home. The flight was arranged because Egypt halted all commercial flights, said MFA. The returning Singapore residents arrived here on Wednesday morning, around 2am. Of the 224 residents, 211 are students studying at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. MFA said the returning residents will serve 14-days of self-isolation at dedicated stay-home notice facilities. Muis said it has set aside Zakat funds to help students and parents offset the cost of the flight. It is also working with the Al-Azhar University to ensure that the student can continue their studies. “Muis will continue to monitor the global situation and work closely with MFA to safeguard the well-being of Singapore students studying in foreign Islamic universities,” it said. Muis also urged students who are still overseas to take necessary precautions, step up personal hygiene, e-register with the MFA and heed the advice of local authorities. Thousands of Singaporean students have returned home from all over the world since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak as educational institutions suspend classes and governments impose border restrictions. Related Story Coronavirus explainers: What you should know to protect yourself

Lockdown 2020: We Be Truckin'! Multiplayer!

Lockdown 2020: We Be Truckin'! Multiplayer! After some fiddling, Alex figures out how to truck with European strangers, who are all very nice and respectful drivers.

Coronavirus is forcing the GOP to admit its theory of governance is a myth: op-ed

In an op-ed for New York Magazine’s Intelligencer this Tuesday, Eric Levitz writes that as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spiral out of control, the Republican Party is silently admitting one thing: that its theory of governance is a “lie.” According to Levitz, the three principles of GOP governance is the assumption that undocumented immigrants are a scourge on society; the gutting of federal agencies will make government run more efficiently, and the super rich are solely to be credited for their exorbitant incomes. ADVERTISEMENT Levitz writes that Trump was making a “halfway convincing show of governing” that those claims are rooted in some sort of reality — but that’s was before the coronavirus hit. “But conservative orthodoxy has always been too detached from reality to command strict adherence,” Levitz writes. “A theory of government assembled out of the self-affirming delusions of the reactionary rich — and seething, amnesia-laden nostalgia of white cultural traditionalists — is bound to be a poor compass for guiding the ship of state.” Read Levitz’s full op-ed over at Intelligencer.

Rural US hospitals struggle as coronavirus pandemic creeps closer

Carter County, Missouri, does not have a single hospital, hospital bed or ventilator for any of its 6,200 residents. Of the six counties on its boundaries, only one - Butler County - has any intensive care unit (ICU) beds. The other five have no hospital beds at all. "The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away," said Michelle Walker, administrator at Carter County Health Center, a small outpatient facility, "but I couldn't say how many ICU beds there are there." The fear of the impending health crisis for rural areas of the United States due to the coronavirus pandemic is laid bare in Carter County and dozens, if not hundreds, of counties in similar situations across the country. While the coronavirus pandemic in the US has spread quickest in urban centres, the country's rural regions appear wholly unprepared for a large-scale medical emergency. Thirty-eight percent of counties in Kansas have no hospitals, while more than half have no ICU beds, according to data analysis by Kaiser Health News. More than 100,000 residents of Idaho have no hospital beds in their counties. Around 60 million Americans - almost 20 percent of the US population - live in rural regions. Rural hospitals have been left understaffed and under-resourced since long before the coronavirus pandemic arrived. A report published in February by the Chartis Center for Rural Health, a research group, found that 120 rurally-based hospitals closed over the last decade, with 2019 seeing the highest number, at 19 closures. "States in the Southeast and lower Great Plains have borne the brunt of the closure crisis," the report finds. Almost one in four are still at risk of closing. Many are states that chose not to expand the Medicaid programme that dates from the era of US President Barack Obama - an initiative almost entirely paid for by the federal government. What's more, predominantly rural states such as Maine, Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont have to deal with some of the highest monthly health insurance premiums in the country. A car pulls up to a registration table at a drive-through coronavirus testing station set up in the car park of Taos High School, New Mexico [Andrew Hay/Reuters] "Rural residents may also be more likely to have jobs without paid sick time, or to be self-employed, which may increase pressure to work when there aren't sheltering orders in place," says Erika Ziller, director of the Maine Rural Health Research Center at the University of Southern Maine. Though sparsely-populated states have broadly been reporting lower infection rates until now, they also have some of the weakest healthcare infrastructure. Missouri's Carter County Health Center relies on a staff of five full-time workers, including Michelle Walker, and three part-time employees. As of March 31, just 25 people had been tested there for COVID-19, with three test results returning positive. Last weekend, the county reported its first coronavirus-related death. Walker preferred not to comment on what she thinks the state or federal governments should be doing to help under-resourced countries such as hers, but she noted the biggest challenge health workers are facing is local residents not taking physical separation seriously. A clerk at the Maupin Market in tiny Maupin, Oregon, wipes down the ice cream case to protect customers from the new coronavirus [Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo] Home to about 10,000 people spread over an area larger than the island of Cyprus, Sublette County in western Wyoming reported just one COVID-19 infection as of Tuesday. Statewide, there have been only 212 cases, and as of this week, Wyoming is the last in the country without a reported COVID-19-related death. But while exposure levels in Sublette County have been low, if an outbreak was to take hold, the consequences for its residents could be dire. The county has a public health facility and a rural clinic, but no hospitals or beds. The nearest ICU is in the city of Jackson, 124km (77 miles) across the Gros Ventre mountain range to the north. Jackson's Teton County, however, has recorded the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in the state and serves 24,000 residents, including the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, which see millions of visitors a year. "[Rural communities] are not necessarily at greater risk because it is a lot easier to socially distance ourselves compared to an individual in a city, so our chance of exposure is very low," said Emily Ray of the Sublette County Rural Health Care District. "But another aspect of that is that we are the only county in the state without a hospital. If all other surrounding hospitals were full or unable to take a very sick patient in need of a hospital for a long period of time, we cannot keep them here and provide the proper care that they need to survive." In April 2018, the county was denied a $28m loan by the US Department of Agriculture's rural development division to build a critical access hospital in Pinedale, with the agency citing the scope of the project as being too big. Some rural hospitals have also abruptly shut their doors in recent months, citing financial difficulties and a lack of support by the medical community. The recently closed Pickens County Medical Center in Carrollton, Alabama [Jay Reeves/AP Photo] Others, however, have sprung into action, anticipating a possible crisis in their communities. Sublette County pooled its public health, emergency management and sheriff's office resources two months prior to its first COVID-19 case to ready itself to respond. Jay says volunteers from the community have gone "above and beyond" in helping health workers and elderly residents. And while nationwide there are about 46,500 medical ICU beds, a similar number could be deployed in an emergency situation, making for one bed for every 3,660 residents. Worst yet to come Experts say, however, that the worst is yet to come for rural areas. Analysis of activity tracked through people's mobile phones by Unacast, a location data platform, shows that Wyoming residents have been doing particularly poorly at social distancing, coming last of all 50 US states in average mobility, or distance driving, and other key indicators. People in Montana and Idaho have also been slow to curtail their movements. Missouri, seen as being one of the states slowest to react to the crisis, only ordered a statewide stay-at-home order on Friday, which started this week. Missouri has more than 2,800 coronavirus cases and 65 deaths. "There needs to be some centralised planning," said Ziller, "to make sure that rural places are not ignored or underserved during the distribution of essential resources like PPE [personal protective equipment], testing supplies, and ventilators."

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Serum Institut: 30-80 gange flere smittede end tal viser

Tirsdag rundede Danmark 5000 smittede med coronavirus. Men skal man følge Statens Serum Instituts vurdering, så er det antal i virkeligheden mellem 30-80 gange højere. Det fremgår af en ny statusrapport udgivet af Sundhedsstyrelsen. Statens Serum Institut går ud fra, at det reelle antal smittede i Danmark er 30-80 gange højere end det antal, der bliver påvist. Antagelsen sker på baggrund af undersøgelser fra blandt andet Tyskland og Island. Det fremgår desuden, at undersøgelser af 1000 bloddonorer tappet i perioden 1.-3. april i Region Hovedstaden viser, at 3,5 procent af dem har været smittet med coronavirus. Overføres den statistik til befolkningen, så har 65.000 personer muligvis allerede været smittet 26. marts. – Det vurderes altså, at mørketallet er betydeligt højere end i det første planlægningsscenarie, og det vurderes fra Statens Serum Instituts side, at der for hvert påvist smittetilfælde frem til 28. marts kan være 30-70, der reelt er smittet, står der blandt andet også i rapporten. Kåre Mølbak, der er faglig direktør i Statens Serum Institut, bekræfter tirsdag til Berlingske, at mørketallene forventes at være i den størrelse. - Der er rigtig meget smitte ude i det danske samfund, og der er et kæmpestort mørketal. I de bloddonorundersøgelser, der er lavet, kan man se, at det måske er 70 gange flere, der har haft infektionen, end vi kan se i statistikkerne, siger Kåre Mølbak til Berlingske. Det har i længere tid været til debat, hvorvidt Danmark har en strategi om flokimmunitet. Altså om man bevidst går efter, at en vis del af befolkningen får smitten og bliver immune. Det vil føre til, at smitten ebber ud. - Vi har ikke en strategi i Danmark, der handler om flokimmunitet, sagde statsminister Mette Frederiksen (S) mandag. Og Kåre Mølbak stemmede i: - Det er ikke en strategi, at folk bliver smittet. Det er en strategi, at folk ikke bliver syge, sagde Kåre Mølbak. Tirsdag er det også kommet frem, at den delvise åbning af landet 15. april vil betyde endnu flere indlæggelser og flere patienter på intensiv. Det fremgår af en rapport fra en ekspertgruppe, som Statens Serum Institut har stået i spidsen for. Den delvise åbning vil betyde, at smittetrykket - hvor mange personer en smittet selv smitter - vil stige til 1,23 fra 1,00. Det vil føre til, at antallet af indlagte vil stige til 649 almindelige sengepladser. 264 vurderes at skulle på en intensiv afdeling. I øjeblikket er 127 indlagt på intensiv.

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Illinois mayor 'embarrassed' to find wife was at social gathering broken up by police

Brant Walker, the mayor of Alton, Ill., said he is “embarrassed” after his wife was found at a social gathering at a local bar over the weekend that was broken up by police for violating a stay-at-home order amid the coronavirus outbreak. In a Facebook post detailing the incident Monday, Walker said he was informed of the incident at Hiram's Tavern “at approximately 1 a.m. on Sunday morning.” “I was also made aware that my wife was in attendance at this prohibited social gathering. I instructed the Police Chief to treat her as he would any citizen violating the ‘Stay At Home’ order and to ensure that she received no special treatment,” he continued. ADVERTISEMENT The Sunday incident also came two days after Walker again urged local residents to “stay at home” to stem the spread of the disease. "These are very serious times and I’m begging you to please stay at home and parents, please keep your kids at home, doing so is vital to our health," he said at a press briefing on Friday. In a statement Monday, Walker said he was “embarrassed by this incident” and apologized “to the citizens of Alton for any embarrassment” the incident may have caused the city, which the United States Census Bureau estimated had a population of fewer than 28,000 people in 2017. “Furthermore, I encourage everyone to join me in thanking the members of our Police and Fire Departments who continue to work every day to protect us during this public health crisis,” he added. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) announced about a week ago that he would be extending the stay-at-home order, first issued from late March to mid-April, through the end of the month. ADVERTISEMENT "I have directed the police department to use their discretion in issuing citations or making arrests to those refusing to follow the state issued stay at home mandate. We will do whatever it takes to decrease the spread of this deadly virus," he added. Walker further wrote in his statement that his wife is an adult who can make her own decisions and exhibited a "stunning lack of judgement." “She now faces the same consequences for her ill-advised decision as the other individuals who chose to violate the ‘Stay At Home’ order during this incident,” Walker said. The Alton Police Department told CNN that it issued criminal complaints for reckless conduct to all who were in attendance at Hiram's Tavern during the incident late Sunday. According to the network, violators can face a fine of up to $2,500 or jail time for the charge.

Singapura perde controle da pandemia e anuncia bloqueio total de um mês

Singapura | Reuters Singapura havia recebido elogios por ter conseguido conter a propagação do novo coronavírus em seu território. Mas, a partir desta terça-feira (7), a cidade-estado entrará em bloqueio total por um mês, após um aumento nos casos da Covid-19. Apenas as empresas que prestam serviços essenciais, como assistência médica, alimentos e serviços públicos, funcionarão no próximo mês. Escolas e universidades também serão fechadas e funcionarão online a partir de quarta (8). Restaurantes e bares receberam a mensagem clara de que, se não pudessem aderir às regras de distanciamento social, seriam fechados compulsoriamente. De acordo com dados compilados pela universidade americana Johns Hopkins, Singapura registra até esta terça (7) 1.375 casos e seis mortes. No sábado (4), a cidade-estado registrou 120 novos casos, seu recorde diário desde o início da pandemia. Homem caminha em rua vazia com lojas fechadas em Singapura - Roslan Rahman - 7.abr.20/AFP Desde que o surto iniciado em Wuhan, na China, tornou-se uma pandemia, escolas e empresas em Singapura estavam abertas, mas participavam de uma campanha de conscientização pública sobre distanciamento social considerada altamente bem-sucedida. Mas uma segunda onda de transmissões locais do vírus e de residentes que retornaram a Singapura do exterior provocou um aumento de dez vezes em novos casos nas últimas semanas. Os números levaram o primeiro-ministro Lee Hsien Loong a admitir que as medidas de contenção do novo coronavírus não eram suficientes. "São notícias preocupantes, mas já esperávamos essa possibilidade", disse ele em um post no Facebook no domingo (5). Em um mesmo dia, quase 20 mil homens estrangeiros foram isolados por 14 dias em dois dormitórios de trabalhadores migrantes após um surto repentino. Dos 120 novos casos registrados no sábado, apenas quatro foram importados, de acordo com o Straits Times, jornal de Singapura. O êxito inicial da Ásia em lidar com a pandemia parece se dar não só porque a região foi a primeira a ser atingida, mas por um tripé formado pela cultura de valorização do coletivo sobre o indivíduo, estruturas avançadas de monitoramento de doentes e uso de inteligência artificial para detectar casos suspeitos. O continente asiático, de maneira geral, tem tido sucesso em enfrentar o primeiro momento da pandemia, mas agora se equilibra em uma corda bamba, com vários países da região tomando medidas para conter uma segunda onda de contaminação. Além do bloqueio anunciado por Singapura, a Coreia do Sul ampliou por duas semanas as medidas de distanciamento social e impôs recentemente uma quarentena obrigatória para estrangeiros, que devem permanecer em instalações do governo por 14 dias após desembarcarem no país. A ideia da quarentena é evitar a reintrodução do coronavírus em regiões que, aparentemente, controlaram o pior momento do surto. Singapura e Coreia do Sul têm, por enquanto, algumas das menores taxas de letalidade por coronavírus no mundo, de 0,07% e 1,69%, respectivamente.

Rush Limbaugh alleges that medical experts like Dr. Fauci are “Hillary Clinton sympathizers” who are conspiring to hurt Donald Trump

Citation From the April 7, 2020, edition of Premiere Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): Jonathan Karl yesterday brought in a China-sympathetic reporter to that press briefing. That China reporter in there from Phoenix TV — that’s a Chinese-dominated company — Jonathan Karl of ABC, he runs the White House Correspondents’ Association, so he brought the reporter in there. And I don’t know if anybody noticed it, but little Doctor — Dr. Fauci, at the end of the briefing, gave Karl a-thumbs up, like a “job well done” kind of thing. It's just, it's just — you know we've got all of these Hillary Clinton sympathizers still in the medical expert team here. And we know that one thing has not changed, and that is these people’s desire, above everything else, to get rid of Donald Trump. Can you believe these people don’t care about the economy being shut down? It is stunning to me. People are being ruined. I talked to a number of friends of mine. These are people that own their own business. A guy, a good friend of mine in South Carolina, told me he’s losing a million dollars a day. Another friend’s business is totally shut down, he’s ruined. And there’s no end in sight to this. And now we’re talking about another task force to discuss how to reopen? We are Capitalism 101. What do we need a task force to talk about how to reopen an economy? We are — or were — the world’s number-one economy. A task force? Look — no, no, no, — I understand that there may be some need to keep the elderly and the susceptible at home and let the young and healthy out, let them go back to work. But a task force is just another bureaucracy. Look, I’m for anything that will get all of this back up and running as soon as possible. But I just don’t get the impression that there are very many people that we see on TV from Washington every day, besides the president, who are focused on this. Do you? Now, I understand — look, I understand this virus is a deadly thing. I understand it’s very serious. I understand all of that, please do not get confused here. But motivation is a key element to anything. Desire is a key element to accomplishment. It always has been. And we keep hearing, “No, we've got to maintain this shutdown. In fact, we need to even intensify the shutdown. We need to keep people staying at home.” ... I'm just telling you that there is an all-out subtle effort for the status quo because it's going to hurt Donald Trump. That is the objective. That is the only thing at the forefront of some of these people's minds while they portray themselves as being primarily concerned with public health.

Ecuador ex-president sentenced to eight years for corruption

Advertising Read more Quito (AFP) Former Ecuador president Rafael Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for corruption during his 10-year term in office, the attorney general's office said Tuesday. Correa -- who was president from 2007-17 but now lives in exile in Belgium, where his wife was born -- was one of 18 people convicted of bribery, the office said on Twitter. Correa, who has always claimed to be a victim of political persecution and accuses his country's judges of complicity, hit out at the sentence. "I know the process and what the judges say is a LIE. They've proved absolutely NOTHING. Pure false testimony without evidence," he wrote on Twitter. He was found guilty of accepting funds from private businesses for his 2013 election campaign in return for state contracts. Amongst the others sentenced on Tuesday was former vice president Jorge Glas, who had already been sentenced to six years in prison in a separate case for accepting a bribe from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. The court also banned all those convicted from political "participation" for 25 years. "This was what they were looking for: manipulating justice to achieve what they never could at the ballot box," said the leftist Correa, who turned 57 on Monday. The former leader said he was "concerned" for his colleagues, adding: "For sure we'll win (an appeal) at the international level because all this is ridiculous." © 2020 AFP

R. Kelly requests bail because of Covid-19, but judge says he's a danger to the community

(CNN) A federal judge Tuesday denied singer R. Kelly's request to be released from a Chicago federal prison due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Kelly's attorney asked March 26 that his client be released on bail, arguing that he is at risk of contracting coronavirus. Because the Bureau of Prisons has suspended legal and social visits as part of its efforts to prevent coronavirus outbreaks at its facilities, the singer hasn't been able to meet with his attorneys, his legal team further argued. US District Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York, who is presiding over one of two federal cases again Kelly, was not convinced. The defendant had not demonstrated any change in circumstances to counter the court's previous conclusion "that he is a flight risk and that he poses danger to the community, particularly to prospective witnesses," she said in a ruling. Read More

Relationships and physical distancing: advice from an SFU expert

As Canadians adhere to strict physical distancing measures imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, interpersonal relationships are being forced to rapidly evolve. We asked SFU psychology expert, Yuthika Girme, to share advice on growing and maintaining strong relationships in an era of physical distancing. Q: I met someone on Tinder. Can I still go on a date with them? A: We want to avoid interacting with people in real life but we can definitely still date by drawing on the smart technology that is available to us. People should look at this as an opportunity to get creative and find new ways to connect and share. For example, couples can use Skype or Zoom to chat online or even watch Netflix together using Netflix Party without having to meet in person. Q: Should ‘date night’ be cancelled? A: Date nights should absolutely not be cancelled. Even though many couples are now spending more time together at home, they are likely preoccupied and not focusing as much time on each other. This makes having date nights — which are really about carving out time to reconnect with our partners — all the more important, even if it’s just time spent at home. Q: My partner and I are stressed and arguing more often. Do you have any tips for dealing with conflict during this time? A: My biggest tip for couples finding that they are arguing more often right now is to be kind to one another. It can also be helpful to take a step back and ask yourself what a neutral party would think about the conflict you are having and write it down in a shared diary. Doing this can help put things into perspective. Past research has shown that this type of exercise can be a satisfying way for couples to share their thoughts and build stronger relationships. Q: I have to live apart from my partner. Do you have tips for dealing with long distance relationships? A: Just because we are physically distant from loved ones doesn’t mean we have to be emotionally distant from them. We are really fortunate that we live in a digital age that allows us to see, hear, and interact with other people. Taking part in online games or virtual activities can help maintain an emotional connection while also keeping things entertaining. Q: I’m in a new relationship, how do I prevent it from fizzling out now that we are apart? A: For people who have just recently met someone or have just started dating someone, get creative. Fun online games that couples can play together or with friends can help keep these interactions fun and lighthearted. A closeness building exercise called 36 Questions for Increasing Closeness might actually be a great way to build deeper connections with people we just met and are interested in romantically, but it’s also a great exercise for strengthening friendship bonds too. Q: Being in isolation, how can we continue to celebrate big events like anniversaries and birthdays? A: Regardless of whether people are celebrating a big event that includes a large virtual hangout or a smaller more intimate event like an anniversary, small changes to the home atmosphere can help make any celebration feel more special. Changing the layout of your home, putting up decorations, all those simple things can really make a difference, especially if we have been stuck in the same place for an extended period of time. Q: I’m single. How do I avoid going stir crazy home alone? A: People who are living alone or single might start to feel more isolated as time goes on. It’s really important for those people to reach out to their friends and family for a game or virtual hangout to maintain that social connection. Continuing with daily health and fitness routines can also help to keep people active and on a regular schedule. Q: Do you have any final words of advice for couples coping with this crisis? A: We just need to be kind to ourselves and to each other and also realize that this isn’t going to be forever. This is one hiccup that we are all facing together and we need to hang in there and know there are going to be better days again where we can meet up with our family and our friends in real life. This is a momentary challenge and there will be better days at the end of this if we all play our part.

Rivalries - ProWrestlingPost.com

Throughout wrestling history, competitors will often face-off with one another much like Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa. What tends to transpire is a series of matches and a collective storyline that binds two competitors with one another. Rivalries will assemble several storylines from anytime or era with the purpose of reflecting, enlightening and in some cases preparing for one final confrontation. This Pro Wrestling Post series titled Rivalries focus is to encapsulate dates, matches, quotes, and feelings from those involved. In order to best understand where a relationship ended it is important to look at where first began. This week we present the rivalry of Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano. Their relationship is as much steeped in love as it is hate. Their journey as a part of WWE’s NXT brand has seen elation and absolute destruction. This coming week Johnny Gargano will end his longstanding rivalry across the ring from Tomasso Ciampa. As ordered by Triple H the destruction these two have caused one another has to come to an end. Once friends but often better foes both Gargano and Ciampa have told the story that wasn’t just about jealousy but one of hidden angst and agendas. This is the case of the Rebel Heart against the Black Heart. To grasp the levity of their feud one needs to reflect back on the history the two have had with one another. The History of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa When the duo first came to NXT was as part of a tag team and the two competed in the inaugural Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. As time passed the two had outside the WWE was being ushered into the ring as more than simply a team. It was often seen that the duo was more like family. Ciampa was a part of Johnny Gargano and Candice LaRae’s wedding party. Their success as a duo was evident. They were perennial top contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championship and eventual tag team title reign showed that DIY had arrived. However, after losing their titles things were not the same. After failing to recapture their tag-team championships, things changed forever. It had gone from their moment to his moment. Tomasso Ciampa attacked Johnny Gargano leaving an immobile Johnny Wrestling to recover with medics and Candice LaRae by his side. However, it would be a match that would have to wait. Ciampa had a torn ligament in his knee. After nearly a year of recovery, Ciampa once again attacked Gargano. At the NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia, Gargano wrestled a tremendous match but was ultimately unsuccessful. While returning back to the backstage area, Gargano and LaRae stopped to soak in the adulation from the crowd. In doing so, Ciampa struck Gargano in the back with a crutch. During Gargano’s next championship opportunity, Ciampa cost him the win. Johnny Gargano: Friend or Foe? After some time away, Gargano had enough and would seek revenge. Ciampa and Gargano would face each other at the NXT TakeOver: New Orleans event in a match that was unsanctioned. The match in its own way was so poetic in the most destructive way. Both men harbored such ill feelings towards one another. At the NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV event, Gargano and Ciampa once again faced each other in a Last Man Standing Match. Once again this was a match that Ciampa won. These losses to Ciampa had a profound effect on Gargano. He became more unstable and uncertain about himself. These actions caused him to act what appeared to be more out of character. The result was a turn resulting in him being the attack of Aleister Black in a parking lot. As time would pass an alliance appeared to be once again made. At the NXT TakeOver: Phoenix event, Gargano would capture the NXT North American Championship. On the same night, Ciampa would successfully defend the NXT Championship against Aleister Black. At the end of the night, Gargano would walk out after Ciampa had retained his title to also hold up his championship as well. Ciampa would eventually have to relinquish his title as much as that pained him to do. However, with an injury so severe the risks of life after wrestling took precedence. With the chances of a triple threat match off the table, Gargano would face Adam Cole in a best two out of three falls match. When all the dust had settled, Gargano won the match and became the new NXT Champion. It wasn’t just celebrated by colleagues but by his wife and close real-life friend, Tommaso Ciampa. Johnny, Candice, and Tommaso: An Unbreakable Bond? Even from a storyline standpoint, the evil Tommaso Ciampa would want [the title] himself but if he can’t he’d probably want Johnny to have it. Even when they are entrenched in this war, he might as well have it if he can’t… It’s an emotional ride, knowing where he’s at knowing what he’s going through…It was a real moment and sometimes those are the best moments. You can’t script it and it’s the most meaningful in my opinion. – Triple H explaining Tomasso Ciampa’s appearance at the end of NXT TakeOver: New York celebrating with Johnny Gargano. This past October (2019) with Ciampa once again back from injury he walked out to confront the Undisputed Era. At the same time, Johnny Gargano also walked alongside him as they confronted the faction. However, Balor’s turn on Gargano at the moment left Ciampa to suffer an attack at the hands of all four members of the Undisputed Era. The attack by Balor left Gargano sidelined indefinitely. However, at NXT TakeOver: Portland Gargano would face Finn Balor while also losing to him in the process. On the same night, Tomasso Ciampa faced Adam Cole for the NXT Championship. When it appeared as though Gargano was coming to Ciampa’s aid he took the title belt and struck him with it while the referee was distracted. Johnny Gargano turned on Tommasso Ciampa. It was supposed to end last year but fate stepped in.. It was going to end this year but fate has stepped in yet again.. In 2 weeks I take it out of fate’s hands. No grand stage, no smoke, and mirrors. It started with just the two of us and it ends with just the two of us. – Johnny Gargano via Twitter regarding his upcoming match with Tommaso Ciampa Love and hate have a very thin line. It seems forgiveness isn’t always as simple as an apology. This wasn’t a case of letting bygones be bygones. At a moment when Gargano captured the NXT Championship fans were given one perspective. When Johnny Gargano reflects on the moment he won the title we are told something different. Ciampa’s embrace of Gargano in the eyes of Johnny Gargano was simply another attempt by Tommaso Ciampa to steal his spotlight. We’ve only had 4 matches against each other since 2016. I’ve won 2 (Cruiserweight Classic, New Orleans). He’s won 2 (Chicago 2, Brooklyn 4) April 8th is the tiebreaker and when it’s over…it’s over. The world will know what you already do..I am the better man. #JohnnyIn5 – Johnny Gargano commenting on the result of his upcoming match with Tommaso Ciampa. It is Ciampa who we’ve heard little from. He has gone silent on social media but that doesn’t mean he’s silent. On Wednesday, April 8th, the Blackheart and the Rebel Heart face off one last time capping off one of the most storied rivalries in NXT history.

Canelo: We Are Going To Win This Fight By Staying at Home

Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is the latest high profile boxer to urge everyone to remain home and practice social distancing during the ongoing cornavirus pandemic. The pandemic has shut down all sporting events for the next few months, including boxing - which saw the majority of the events canceled in April, May and even June. Most countries have issued lockdown orders, where citizens have been ordered to remain at home and leave only when necessary. "During these difficult times we have to fight while staying at home. Let's help by staying and training at home. We are going to win this fight by staying at home," Canelo said. Canelo was last seen in action in November, when he moved up by two full weight divisions and knocked out Sergey Kovalev to capture the WBO light heavyweight crown. Prior to that, in May of the same year, he won a twelve round unanimous decision over Daniel Jacobs. Canelo had been scheduled to fight on May 2 in Las Vegas, as part of Cinco De Mayo weekend, against WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. But it was postponed due to the pandemic. There is no guarantee that Canelo vs. Saunders will even happen, because there is already an agreement in place for Canelo to face Gennady Golovkin in a trilogy fight on September 12. Golovkin, who holds the IBF middleweight title, would likely have to move up to 168-pounds for the fight. Should Canelo-Saunders get pushed back too far into the summer, the Mexican star would likely bypass the fight and head directly to the contest with Golovkin. Canelo fought Golovkin to a controversial twelve round draw in 2017, and then a year later Canelo won a close majority decision in the rematch.

Compra Fora: vale a pena usar o serviço de importação dos Correios?

No final de janeiro, os Correios lançaram um serviço chamado Compra Fora para ajudar na importação de produtos para uso pessoal. É uma plataforma voltada para quem quer, por exemplo, comprar um jogo não lançado por aqui, ou então aproveitar um preço melhor por um celular. Mas será que esse serviço vale a pena? A ideia da plataforma é servir como um intermediário nas compras internacionais. Ao solicitar o Compra Fora, o usuário recebe um endereço nos EUA para receber encomendas. De lá, os pacotes são encaminhados para o Brasil e chegam ao comprador. A principal vantagem dele é definir o valor do produto na hora da compra: o Compra Fora calcula o valor do frete dentro dos Estados Unidos, o envio para o Brasil, os impostos de importação e o transporte dentro do Brasil na hora da compra. Assim, o consumidor já sabe quanto exatamente vai gastar logo de cara, sem correr risco de ter uma surpresa desagradável na taxação pela Receita Federal na hora que a encomenda entra no Brasil. O pagamento precisa ser feito com cartão de crédito internacional. Mas será que vale a pena fazer compras com ajuda do novo serviço dos Correios? Compensa comprar produtos em sites americanos e usar pedir para o Compra Fora trazer para cá? O Olhar Digital já fez algumas simulações com produtos da Apple e elas se mostraram vantajosas do ponto de vista financeiro. Mas e com eletrônicos de outras marcas? Ainda vale a pena usar o serviço? Confira o que observamos: -> Compra Fora: prós e contras de usar o novo site de importação dos Correios -> Como rastrear encomendas no site dos Correios Galaxy Note 9 O aparelho da Samsung é um dos contrapontos ao iPhone XS Max em termos de preço, configurações e acabamento premium. Durante nossas pesquisas, o aparelho foi encontrado por US$ 730 na Amazon dos EUA, o que faz com que ele seja consideravelmente mais barato do que um iPhone novo no país. Trazê-lo ao Brasil pelo serviço dos Correios, no entanto, não é uma boa ideia. O aparelho custaria mais de R$ 4.500, quando o mesmo modelo, comprado diretamente no Brasil, com garantia nacional, pode ser adquirido por cerca de R$ 3.600. Surface Book 2 O Surface Book se tornou um dos produtos mais interessantes para quem procura notebooks com Windows por unir desempenho e design. O aparelho tem um problema: não está disponível no Brasil de forma oficial. O modelo que orçamos tinha processador Intel Core i5, 8 GB de memória RAM e 256 GB de armazenamento, com tela de 13,5 polegadas. Seu preço nos EUA seria de US$ 1.300; pelo serviço de importação dos Correios, no entanto, esse valor sobe para R$ 8.000. No Mercado Livre, a versão mais barata que encontramos custa R$ 8.500, mas a maior parte custa mais de R$ 10 mil. Surface Pro 6 O Surface Pro 6 é a opção de tablet híbrido da Microsoft mais acessível do que o Surface Book 2, que é um notebook mais próximo de um formato convencional. Ele também não está disponível no Brasil. Orçamos a versão com processador Core i5 e 8 GB de memória RAM e 128 GB de armazenamento interno. Nos EUA, ele custa US$ 890. Com o serviço de importação dos Correios, ele custaria R$ 5.600. Para comparação, no Mercado Livre, o produto custa algo na casa de R$ 6.900. Pixel 3 XL O Pixel 3 XL é um dos smartphones mais interessantes que não está disponível no Brasil, ainda que seja bastante caro. O aparelho tem provavelmente a melhor câmera entre todos os smartphones, o que o torna bastante atraente para o público em geral. Nos EUA, sua versão de 128 GB custa US$ 900. E quanto isso vira quando usamos o serviço dos Correios? A simulação aponta um preço de R$ 5.560, o que não é muito barato. É possível encontrar opções mais baratas no Mercado Livre, com opção de parcelamento. Não vale a pena. Nintendo Switch Por não estar disponível no Brasil, o Nintendo Switch é um dos produtos mais procurados no esquema “um amigo trouxe dos EUA para mim”. O console caiu na graça do público e rapidamente disparou para o topo dos mais vendidos por todo o planeta. Nos EUA, o console custa US$ 300. Ao utilizar o serviço dos Correios, a importação custaria R$ 1.940 segundo a nossa simulação. É um preço um pouco mais caro do que o encontrado no Mercado Livre, por exemplo, e ainda com a desvantagem de não permitir parcelamento. Xbox One X O Xbox One X é a opção do jogador que gosta de gráficos o mais fotorrealistas possíveis; o console é, sem qualquer dúvida, a alternativa mais potente e, desta forma, é aqui que estão os melhores gráficos. Na melhor oferta que encontramos para o Xbox One X, o console pode ser adquirido por US$ 400. Na nossa cotação no site dos Correios, isso ficou equivalente a R$ 2.550. É bem próximo do valor do valor cobrado no Mercado Livre e praticamente igual ao valor dos revendedores oficiais no Brasil, que ainda dão opção de parcelamento. PS4 Pro Outro console bastante popular entre os importadores, roda todos os jogos do PS4 oferecendo poder computacional extra para melhorar taxa de quadros e resolução de muitos games da plataforma. Seu preço oficial no exterior é de US$ 400. Nos nossos testes, o produto foi orçado em R$ 2.640 pelo serviço dos Correios, o que também é muito próximo dos valores cobrados no mercado brasileiro, que tem condições de pagamento mais vantajosas para quem não pode desembolsar esse valor à vista.

Six Sudanese detained on Russia’s border to Norway

The six Sudanese citizens, three adults and three children, did not have legal registration to stay in Russia, and lacked documents for crossing the border to Norway, the regional court of Murmansk Oblast informs. The aim of the attempted border crossing, according to the court briefing, was to “permanently move to Norway” for the reason of “improving their living conditions.” No details are given on where along the 200 km long Norwegian-Russian border the six Sudanese citizens were stopped. The only information from FSB says “the suspects were detained outside the established checkpoint”. The only checkpoint on the border, Borisoglebsk, is partly closed for traffic due to the coronavirus outbreak. FSB has launched a criminal case and investigation is ongoing. The court informs that the three adults, one woman and two men, will remain in custody until May 31.

Lancaster County jumps to 31 cases | Lincoln Mayor asks public to wear masks

Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird and health officials updated the community on the City’s efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus at a briefing on Monday. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Lancaster County have jumped to 31. City of Lincoln officials said the cases are individuals ranging in age from 29 to 71. City officials said in regards to 13 of the new illnesses, two individuals are in their 20's, three in their 30's, one in their 40's, four in their 50's, two in their 60's, and one in their 70's. One individual is currently hospitalized. Of these 13 individuals, four were contracted via travel, six were community acquired, and three are still under investigation. Health officials in Lancaster County are now monitoring 95 individuals. Lancaster County reports 1030 negative tests with 20 cases pending at the Nebraska Public Health Lab. There are now 426 confirmed cases in the State of Nebraska, with the most being in Douglas County, who has 159. Hall County has the second most case with 55, and Lancaster County is third. COVID-19 has claimed the life of nine Nebraskans. The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department now recommend that residents use cloth face coverings when in public to protect against the spread of COVID-19. The guidance is in line with the recommendation issued Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that individuals wear non-medical grade masks or face coverings when out in public areas. The use of face coverings is not mandated. “It is critical that our residents understand this is an additional recommendation and does not replace physical distancing, staying home when you are sick, covering your cough and sneeze, hand washing, and disinfecting high touch surfaces several times a day, which are our first line of defense in halting the spread of the virus,” Gaylor Baird said. “If you must be in public for essential activities - like medical appointments, grocery shopping or picking up medications - wearing a cloth face covering is another preventive measure that can keep our community safer.” LLCHD said residents should not use surgical and N95 masks, unless specifically advised to do so by a medical provider. Surgical and N95 masks are reserved for first responders and medical workers. Those who have medical grade masks are asked to donate them to a medical facility to protect the lives of our medical professionals. The CDC said there is increased evidence that people without symptoms may be able to spread the virus, and that droplets produced when breathing, speaking, coughing or sneezing may spread COVID-19 from person to person. The CDC said studies show that wearing simple masks or face coverings that cover the mouth and nose can prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses and lower the risk of infection. The effect is greatest when masks are used along with hand washing and social distancing. LLCHD also issued the following advice: -Those who are staying in a home where no one else in the family is infected do not need to wear a face covering at home. -Children under age two and people with breathing difficulties should not wear face coverings. -Those who are improvising face coverings or making them from patterns should use fabrics like heavy cotton T-shirt material or pillowcase material. -Face coverings should be washed after each use, or at least daily. -Coverings should be kept in a paper bag or separate bin until they can be laundered with detergent and hot water and dried on a hot cycle. -Do not put a used face covering in places where others can touch it or where germs trapped in the face covering can touch other surfaces. -Before putting on or taking off a face covering, individuals should wash their hands thoroughly. Hands should also be washed after removing the face covering. People should avoid touching their faces and the face coverings while wearing them. -Store your face covering in a paper bag if you will be taking if off when outside the house.

Tras el escándalo por los sobreprecios, echaron al encargado de la compra de arroz y aceite, renunciaron otros 14 funcionarios y podría seguir la purga

El ministro de Desarrollo Social Daniel Arroyo echó este martes a Gonzalo Calvo, el secretario de Articulación de Política Social, que había quedado en el ojo de la tormenta después de que trascendiera la compra de arroz y de aceite por encima de los precios testigos que recomienda la SIGEN. Otros 14 funcionarios del área habrían presentado su renuncia sus puestos y podrían irse más. El pedido de renuncia a Calvo es el primer resultado que arrojó el sumario interno que se inició el lunes en Desarrollo Social. En el ministerio no descartaron que otros funcionarios sean apartados. "Vamos a avanzar con el circuito administrativo de las compras para el ministerio y no se descartan más cambios", expresaron fuentes oficiales. Calvo había asumido en diciembre y en el pasado se había desempeñado como secretario de Seguridad de Almirante Brown, cargo al que renunció en medio de una denuncia por coimas. Respondía políticamente al intendente Mariano Cascallares. El flamante ex funcionario era el encargado de mediar en los conflictos con las organizaciones sociales. De hecho la compra era para comedores, que son administrados por los movimientos en cuestión. Allegados a Calvo precisaron a Clarín que fue él mismo quien ofreció su renuncia a Arroyo para descomprimir la situación. "Se puso a disposición de cualquier investigación. La compra fue en el marco de la emergencia", señalaron. Catorce de sus colaboradores presentaron su renuncia indeclinable, según dijeron fuentes de la secretaría de Articulación de Política Social. Sin embargo, cerca del ministro no lo confirmaban. A última hora de este martes, Arroyo se reunía con el Presidente en Olivos. ​Los 14 funcionarios que habrían presentado su renuncia indeclinable -según confiaron cerca de Calvo- son el subsecretario de Asistencia Crítica, Carlos Montaña; el coordinador de abordaje territorial, Fabio Frega; el coordinador de Depósito Metropolitano, Pedro Procopio; la directora de Emergencia, Ana Barchetta; la coordinadora de asistencia técnica directa, Carolina D`Ambrossio; la directora de Asistencia Crítica, Florencia Plano; la directora de Asistencia Institucional, Agustina Brea; el director de Gestión y Asistencia Urgente, Gastón Lasalle; el director de Ayudas emergentes, Christian Escudero; el coordinador de Asistencias a Instituciones No gubernamentales, Victor Oviedo; el coordinador de Gestión de ayudas urgentes, Ignacio Sabaini; el director de Talleres familiares, Gabriel Giurliddo; el director nacional de Articulación Social, Federico Ludueña; y el director de Asistencia para Situaciones especiales Gustavo Cassieri. Arroyo dispuso además​ revocar las compras de aceite y azúcar, que -según indicaron en el ministerio- eran las que estaban por encima de los precios testigo de la Sigen. "Se va a hacer una nueva convocatoria", destacaron. Referentes de los movimientos -con cargos en el ministerio de Arroyo- mantienen una guerra subterránea con los intendentes del Conurbano. "Quiero ver rodar una cabeza. No puede ser que esto pase impunemente", había reclamado en declaraciones a FM Millenium el referente de la CTEP Juan Grabois. El escándalo comenzó este lunes cuando se comprobó que en seis resoluciones publicadas en el Boletín Oficial que autorizaban la compra de 5 toneladas de alimentos por un total de $534 millones que incluía aceite, arroz y fideos, entre otras mercaderías. En algunos casos el gasto estaba muy por encima de los precios máximos que se encuentran en las góndolas, pero más importante -como insistieron en el Gobierno- de los "precios testigo" que fija la Sindicatura General de la Nación (SIGEN). En Desarrollo Social reconocieron que los problemas específicos eran con el arroz y con el aceite, que figuraban puntualmente en las resoluciones 152 y 159 /2020. Tras conversar con el Arroyo, el Presidente respaldó a su ministro, pero advirtió que ordenaría que el Estado no pueda comprar insumos por encima de los precios fijados por la SIGEN. "Esta compra que se hizo, todavía no se pagó. Di la orden de que ninguna compra se pueda hacer sin respetar los precios máximos que el Estado fija. No puede ser que alguien se le plante al Estado en una situación como la que estamos viviendo", sostuvo el mandatario en diálogo con TN. El jefe de Estado no duda de la honestidad de Arroyo, que es cuestionado por diferentes actores dentro del Ejecutivo como Victoria Tolosa Paz, titular del Consejo Nacional de Coordinación de Políticas Sociales, cuyo nombre sonó para ocupar la Cartera de Desarrollo Social antes del 10 de diciembre. "Lo que más me preocupó es que estas empresas se plantaron y no quisieron bajar los precios. Y él tuvo el dilema de alimentar a la gente o pagar esos precios y eligió alimentar a la gente", sostuvo Fernández. El Presidente habló de cartelización de los proveedores, que -como precisaban algunos funcionarios- trabajan con el Estado desde "la época de (Eduardo) Duhalde". Por ese motivo, algunos dirigentes apuntaron contra Carlos Castagneto, quien en 2002 fue designado subsecretario de coordinación de Desarrollo Social y entre 2003 y 2015 ocupó el cargo de secretario de Coordinación de la misma Cartera bajo la supervisión de Alicia Kirchner. "Hubo gente que él dejó y que permaneció durante la gestión del PRO. Esta es una oportunidad para arrancar el problema de cuajo", señalan funcionarios. Por esa razón otra de los funcionarias que quedaron en la mira es la secretaria de Gestión Administrativa María Cecilia Lavot, aunque en Desarrollo Social por ahora lo negaban. Desde algunas de las organizaciones sociales que hoy militan dentro del Frente de Todos también cargaron contra la secretaria de Inclusión Social de la Cartera y dirigente de La Cámpora, Laura Alonso. En el ministerio defendieron su accionar y aclararon que la funcionaria se encarga de pensar los componentes nutricionales de las compras. También justificaron las compras a algunos proveedores, por los requisitos que deben presentar las empresas para venderle al Estado. Si Alonso y Lavot siguen finalmente los casos de Calvo algunos hablaban de una respuesta equilibrada. "Lavot puede ser, porque es de Castagneto, pero no creo que se metan con La Cámpora", señaló otro funcionario de Desarrollo Social. Entre los ruidos entre los intendentes y las organizaciones sociales sobresalía antes de la irrupción del coronavirus el uso de las tarjetas alimentarias en comercios o en las ferias con trabajadores informales. Con la amenaza latente que significa la pandemia y la profundización de la crisis por la cuarentena obligatoria en el Conurbano, Arroyo había convocado a un comité de emergencia social con intendentes y organizaciones y pretendía que el mismo se replicara en cada distrito.

Arkansas governor says no stay-at-home orders for cities

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas’ governor, who has resisted issuing a broad stay-at-home order for his state to combat the coronavirus, on Tuesday opposed even allowing such restrictions at the local level. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is among a handful of governors who haven’t issued stay-at-home orders, said those restrictions need to be dealt with on a statewide basis. Hutchinson said a number of mayors have talked with him about the issue. “I think it points up the need to have a statewide policy because if you have a business in one community, it impacts others,” Hutchinson said. “If you have essential services in one community, it serves the entire state if not more.” ADVERTISEMENT Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott said he has asked the governor for a stay-at-home order for his city, which has already implemented a nighttime curfew. “We’re working within the confines by being creative and by respecting the current order,” Scott said, referring to the governor’s declaration of an emergency because of the outbreak. Hutchinson said his order has been amended to give cities more flexibility on curfews and closing city facilities. Scott on Monday expanded the city’s restrictions to include a ban on vehicle caravans after large crowds gathered over the weekend at an intersection and nearby parking lots. Scott’s order defines caravans as five or more vehicles traveling together with the intention of exiting for recreational purposes. “This virus is not a game ... We have to take this serious to truly flatten the curve,” Scott said. Local leaders in some of the states that haven’t issued stay-at-home orders have taken their own action. But city officials in Arkansas say Hutchinson’s emergency proclamation, which requires state approval for any “quarantine regulations of commerce or travel,” prevents them from enacting their own stay-at-home orders. Hutchinson argues that a broader stay-at-home order would put many people out of work and that the state is keeping the number of infections below projections with targeted restrictions such as bans on large gatherings and closing certain types of businesses. The Health Department on Tuesday said the number of cases in Arkansas had risen to at least 997 from 927 the night before. Two more people died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, bringing the state’s death toll to 18. For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The new cases include 14 more inmates at a federal prison in Forrest City, bringing the total number there to 24. Five employees at the facility have also tested positive. State Health Secretary Dr. Nathaniel Smith a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was expected to arrive at the facility Tuesday night. ___ Check out more of the AP’s coronavirus coverage at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Lightning Marriage Novel PDF Free Download

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Introducing DualSense, the new wireless game controller for PlayStation 5

We’ve reached an exciting milestone with PlayStation 5, as we’re starting to ship our new controller in its final design to developers who are implementing its unique features into their games. But first, we wanted everyone in the PlayStation community to get a first look at the DualSense™ wireless controller, and hear our vision for how the new controller will captivate more of your senses as you interact with the virtual worlds in PS5 games. The features of DualSense, along with PS5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech, will deliver a new feeling of immersion to players. When PS4 launched in 2013, the DualShock 4 wireless controller garnered a lot of positive feedback from gamers and developers for being the best PlayStation controller yet, and for introducing forward-looking features like the Share button. This brought us to the next question – how do we build upon that success? After thoughtful consideration, we decided to keep much of what gamers love about DualShock 4 intact, while also adding new functionality and refining the design. Based on our discussions with developers, we concluded that the sense of touch within gameplay, much like audio, hasn’t been a big focus for many games. We had a great opportunity with PS5 to innovate by offering game creators the ability to explore how they can heighten that feeling of immersion through our new controller. This is why we adopted haptic feedback, which adds a variety of powerful sensations you’ll feel when you play, such as the slow grittiness of driving a car through mud. We also incorporated adaptive triggers into the L2 and R2 buttons of DualSense so you can truly feel the tension of your actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow. This provided us with an exciting challenge to design a new controller that builds off of the current generation, while taking into account the new features we were adding. For example, with adaptive triggers, we had to consider how the components would fit into the hardware, without giving it a bulky feeling. Our design team worked closely with our hardware engineers to place the triggers and actuators. The designers were then able to draw the lines of how the exterior of the controller would look and feel, with a challenge of making the controller feel smaller than it really looks. In the end, we changed the angle of the hand triggers and also made some subtle updates to the grip. We also took thoughtful consideration into ways to maintain a strong battery life for DualSense’s rechargeable battery, and to lessen the weight of the controller as much as possible as new features were added. For the buttons, you’ll notice there is no longer a “Share” button as we had with DualShock 4. Don’t worry – it’s not going away. In fact, we’ve built upon the success of our industry-first Share button to bring you a new “Create” button feature. With Create, we’re once again pioneering new ways for players to create epic gameplay content to share with the world, or just to enjoy for themselves. We’ll have more details on this feature as we get closer to launch. DualSense also adds a built-in microphone array, which will enable players to easily chat with friends without a headset – ideal for jumping into a quick conversation. But of course, if you are planning to chat for a longer period, it’s good to have that headset handy. Now, let’s talk about the colors. Traditionally our base controllers have a single color. As you can see, we went a different direction this time around, and decided on a two-toned design. Additionally, we changed the position of the light bar that will give it an extra pop. On DualShock 4, it sat on the top of the controller; now it sits at each side of the touch pad, giving it a slightly larger look and feel. In all, we went through several concepts and hundreds of mockups over the last few years before we settled on this final design. DualSense has been tested by a wide range of gamers with a variety of hand sizes, in order for us to achieve the comfort level we wanted, with great ergonomics. Our goal with DualSense is to give gamers the feeling of being transported into the game world as soon as they open the box. We want gamers to feel like the controller is an extension of themselves when they’re playing – so much so that they forget that it’s even in their hands! We are thrilled about sharing the final look of the DualSense controller with our fans, and we can’t wait for everyone to get their hands on it! I’d like to close with a message from SIE President & CEO Jim Ryan to the community: “DualSense marks a radical departure from our previous controller offerings and captures just how strongly we feel about making a generational leap with PS5. The new controller, along with the many innovative features in PS5, will be transformative for games – continuing our mission at PlayStation to push the boundaries of play, now and in the future. To the PlayStation community, I truly want to thank you for sharing this exciting journey with us as we head toward PS5’s launch in Holiday 2020. We look forward to sharing more information about PS5, including the console design, in the coming months.” – Jim Ryan, President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment “DualSense” is a registered trademark or trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

China lifts 76-day travel ban on Wuhan, centre of the coronavirus pandemic

Passengers wear facemasks as they arrive at the Wuhan Wuchang Railway Station in Wuhan, early on April 8, 2020. The lockdown that served as a model for countries battling the coronavirus around the world has ended after 11 weeks: Chinese authorities are allowing residents of Wuhan to once again travel in and out of the sprawling city where the pandemic began. Advertising Read more As of just after midnight Wednesday, the city's 11 million residents are now permitted to leave without special authorization as long as a mandatory smartphone application powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance shows they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus. The occasion was marked with a light show on either side of the broad Yangtze river, with skyscrapers and bridges radiating animated images of health workers aiding patients, along with one displaying the words “heroic city," a title bestowed on Wuhan by president and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. Along the embankments and bridges, citizens waved flags, chanted “Wuhan, let’s go!” and sang a capella renditions of China’s national anthem. Wuhan lifts lockdown for the first time since January 23 pic.twitter.com/qP1cyFpp4I — ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) April 7, 2020 “I haven’t been outside for more than 70 days,” said an emotional Tong Zhengkun, who was watching the display from a bridge. Residents in his apartment complex had contracted COVID-19, so the entire building was shut down. He couldn't go out even to buy groceries, which neighborhood workers brought to his door. “Being indoors for so long drove me crazy,” he said. EN NW GRAB Q1 CHARLES PELLEGRIN FROM 7H 01:18 It didn't take long for traffic to begin moving swiftly through the newly reopened bridges, tunnels and highway toll booths, while hundreds waited for the first trains and flights out of the city, many hoping to return to jobs elsewhere. Restrictions in the city where most of China's more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths were reported have been gradually relaxed in recent weeks as the number of new cases steadily declined. The latest government figures reported Tuesday listed no new cases. While there are questions about the veracity of China's count, the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and its surrounding province of Hubei have been successful enough that countries around the world adopted similar measures. “The people in Wuhan paid out a lot and bore a lot mentally and psychologically,” resident Zhang Xiang said. “Wuhan people are historically famous for their strong will.” During the 76-day lockdown, Wuhan residents had been allowed out of their homes only to buy food or attend to other tasks deemed absolutely necessary. Some were allowed to leave the city, but only if they had paperwork showing they were not a health risk and a letter attesting to where they were going and why. Even then, authorities could turn them back on a technicality such as missing a stamp, preventing thousands from returning to their jobs outside the city. Residents of other parts of Hubei were allowed to leave the province starting about three weeks ago, as long as they could provide a clean bill of health. Prevention measures such as wearing masks, temperature checks and limiting access to residential communities will remain in place in Wuhan, which is the capital of Hubei. In an editorial, the ruling Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily warned against celebrating too soon. “This day that people have long been looking forward to and it is right to be excited. However, this day does not mark the final victory,” the paper said. “At this moment, we still need to remind ourselves that as Wuhan is unblocked, we can be pleased, but we must not relax.” In anticipation of the lockdown's lifting, SWAT teams and staff in white hazmat suits had patrolled outside the city's Hankou railway station, while guards attended a security briefing under the marble arches of its entrance. Tickets for trains out of Wuhan to cities across China already were advertised on electronic billboards, with the first train leaving for Beijing at 6:25 a.m. A line designated for passengers headed to the capital was roped off, while loudspeakers blared announcements about pandemic control measures, such as keeping safe distances and wearing masks. Wuhan is a major center for heavy industry, particularly autos, and while many major plants have restarted production, the small and medium-sized businesses that provide the most employment are still hurting from both a lack of workers and demand. Measures are being instituted to get them back on their feet, including 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) in preferential loans, according to the city government. China blocked people from leaving or entering Wuhan starting Jan. 23 in a surprise middle-of-the-night announcement and expanded the lockdown to most of the province in succeeding days. Train service and flights were canceled and checkpoints were set up on roads into the central province. The drastic steps came as the coronavirus began spreading to the rest of China and overseas during the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, when many Chinese travel. The exact source of the virus remains under investigation, though it is thought to be linked to an outdoor food market in the city. In preparation for the end of the lockdown, Party Secretary Wang Zhonglin, the city’s highest-ranking official, inspected the city's airport and train stations Monday to ensure they were ready. The city must "enforce prevention while opening up, maintain safety and orderliness and the assurance of stability,” Wang said. Mission one: to make sure the epidemic doesn’t resurge, he said. (AP) Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe

Yet another country flags cache of defective Chinese-manufactured medical equipment

For the countries suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, “Made in China” should be considered a warning if not an outright threat. The government of Austria, which has 12,547 total confirmed coronavirus cases and 243 deaths, reported that 500,000 Chinese-produced protective masks destined for South Tyrol are “unusable,” according to Die Presse. This is merely the latest in a long string of countries that say they have received defective Chinese-manufactured medical gear. Officials for the Czech Republic, which has 4,828 total confirmed cases and 80 deaths, reported that 300,000 Chinese-made quick tests purchased by the Czech government worked only if the person being tested had been infected by the coronavirus for a minimum of five days. Czech health officials also said that approximately 100,000 of the kits were defective. Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic, whose country has 581 total confirmed cases and two deaths, said that the more than 1 million tests that his predecessor bought from Chinese-connected distributors are also defective. “We have a ton and no use for them,” he said of the $16 million worth of reportedly worthless kits. He added that they should “just be thrown straight into the Danube.” Spain, which has 140,511 total confirmed cases and 13,897 deaths, recalled approximately 60,000 of the 340,000 Chinese-produced tests it purchased. Spanish health authorities determined the kits had an accurate detection rate of only 30%. Likewise, Turkey, which has 34,109 total confirmed cases and 725 deaths, said the Chinese-made kits it purchased had an accuracy rate of just 35%. The tests were suspended immediately until a more reliable batch arrived (also from a Chinese supplier). Officials in the Netherlands, which has 19,703 total confirmed cases and 2,108 deaths, recalled 600,000 of the 1.3 million Chinese-manufactured face masks purchased by the Dutch government. The Dutch health ministry said the masks had defective filters. "The rest of the shipment was immediately put on hold and has not been distributed,” Dutch officials said in a statement. “Now, it has been decided not to use any of this shipment.” Related, Italy, which has 135,586 total confirmed cases and 17,127 deaths, is being made to buy back a cache of personal protective equipment it donated to China during the early days of the outbreak. So, here is a question: How is it that China, which claims it has had no new coronavirus deaths since late January, does not seem to know how to manufacture a decent protective mask? Perhaps China, which is largely responsible for the pandemic, is hoarding all the good equipment for itself. Perhaps it is merely tossing its scraps to the international community, hoping the donations will give its ruling body a badly needed jolt of positive press. The United States is, after all, engaged in a war of words with China for control of the COVID-19 narrative. Or maybe it is something worse than China keeping the good gear for itself. Perhaps its protective equipment is defective all the way down — meaning the situation in China may be far worse and far deadlier than regime apparatchiks dare admit.

Immigration Officer Fired After Putting Wife on List of Terrorists to Stop Her Flying Home

An immigration officer tried to rid himself of his wife by adding her name to a list of terrorist suspects. He used his access to security databases to include his wife on a watch list of people banned from boarding flights into Britain because their presence in the country is 'not conducive to the public good'. As a result the woman was unable for three years to return from Pakistan after travelling to the county to visit family. The tampering went undetected until the immigration officer was selected for promotion and his wife name was found on the suspects' list during a vetting inquiry. The Home Office confirmed today that the officer has been sacked for gross misconduct.

Right-Wing Pastor: We Should Trust Trump, Not Dr. Fauci, Because God Chose Him

Right-wing pastor Curt Landry, last seen telling people to avoid potential COVID-19 vaccines because they’re from the “pit of Hell,” wants you to listen to Donald Trump for medical advice instead of scientists and doctors. Which is a roundabout way of saying he wants you to die. He explain all this during a live-stream last Friday: “I’m talking to you spiritually,” Landry said. “I am not a scientist, I am not a doctor, and I do respect [Dr. Anthony Fauci’s] knowledge, I respect where he comes from, and I respect him in his position that God has put him in. But in the order of spiritual alignment, Donald J. Trump is the Cyrus above him… As believers, we need to agree — I believe that God puts kings and leaders in their place, I believe God has put Donald Trump in his place as a Cyrus — and we need to agree with what he’s saying.” Except the coronavirus is very much a physical and scientific problem, not a spiritual one. Donald Trump could be as spiritual as the pope and still never be considered an authority on any medical issue whatsoever. You wouldn’t trust Trump to perform an appendectomy and you shouldn’t trust him to diagnose anyone during a pandemic, much less offer up a cure. Listen to the experts. Not Republicans doing everything in their power to cover up their leaders’ own incompetence. (via Right Wing Watch)

I Love Acid Label Makes Their Vinyl Only Releases Digitally Available

Respected vinyl-only label I Love Acid have just announced that they are making a number of their vinyl releases available digitally to financially support their artists during Covid-19. I Love Acid Label boss and recording artist Josh ‘Posthuman’ Doherty announced on Twitter today that a number of I Love Acid releases were to become available to download on Bandcamp. Previously, all the labels releases were only available on vinyl and famously just ‘303‘ copies of each. The decision was taken to financially support many of the label’s artists for whom income has fallen drastically since the Covid-19 pandemic. Doherty approached his roster about the idea, some of whom currently didn’t have the need for additional income and were happy to leave their releases as vinyl only. For the rest of the back catalogue, artists will be paid directly for every purchase, with zero commission going to the label. Doherty: “I’ve always been very strict on the label being vinyl-only, to the point of massive online spats about it! And it’s obviously a kinda hypocritical move to now make some of the back catalogue digital; it might devalue some peoples records or upset those who have made a huge effort to collect everything. And it may affect future sales too. But basically, a lot of the artists have families, mortgages and rent, and their incomes have been slashed hugely, as has mine – 90% of my income is gigs.” In order to assign releases directly to artists on their Bandcamp page to facilitate payment straight to their accounts, I Love Acid will incur around an extra £600 per year. Doherty said that the I Love Acid Bandcamp page may have to revert once the crisis has passed. You can listen to the I Love Acid back catalogue here. Related

Google’s auto-complete for speech can cover up glitches in video calls

The news: With many of us now relying on video calls for face-to-face interaction, choppy connections are more frustrating than ever. An artificial intelligence that mimics an individual speaker’s way of talking can smooth over the cracks by filling in small gaps with snippets of generated speech. Developed by a team at Google, the technology is now being used in Google’s video-calling app Duo. What’s the problem? When you’re on an online call your voice gets chopped up into lots of tiny pieces that are zipped across the internet in data blocks known as packets. Packets often arrive at the other end jumbled up and software has to reorder them. But sometimes packets don’t arrive at all, which creates glitches and gaps in a conversation. This happens at the best of times. According to Google 99% of Duo calls have to deal with jumbled up or lost packets. A tenth of those calls lose more than 8% of their audio. Generating speech: To fix the problem, the team built on a neural network developed by DeepMind that can generate realistic speech from text. Called WaveNetEQ, the new neural network was then trained on a large dataset of 100 recorded human voices speaking 48 different languages until it could auto-complete short sections of speech based on common patterns in the way people talk. Because Duo is end-to-end encrypted, the AI runs on the device, not the cloud. During a call, WaveNetEQ is able to learn characteristics of a speaker’s voice and generates audio snippets that match both the style and content of what the speaker is saying. When a packet is lost, the AI generated voice is inserted in its place. For now, the AI can only generate syllables rather than whole words or phrases. But short samples Google posted online show that the results can be pretty lifelike. In one case, the AI replaces the second syllable of the word “trouble” in a voice that mimics the male speaker exactly.

Germany’s coronavirus response: Separating fact from fiction

As of April 7, Germany had reported some 105,000 confirmed cases of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. However the country's death rate from the pandemic remains around 1.5%, according to both US and German disease control experts.* This figure is considerably lower than fellow EU members Spain (9.5%) and Italy (12%). This deviation has garnered a great deal of attention from English-speaking media, with US and UK outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian and several public broadcasters painting a rosy picture of Germany's handling of the crisis. DW breaks down some of the most prominent narratives about the German response to the novel coronavirus and why the mortality rate appears so comparatively low — and whether they square with reality. Claim: Germany is testing at one of the highest per capita rates in the world, and is also testing individuals with light or no symptoms Reality: The German Health Ministry has said that it is testing 300,000 people per week in a country of 82 million people; it has already carried out far more tests than Italy, the European epicenter of the pandemic. While that is a massive effort, assuming that each German resident would be tested once, it would take 3 years to test the entire population. Watch video 01:53 Share Coronavirus tracing app Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3aTV3 Germany gradually warming up to COVID-19 tracking app Comparing test rates per capita around the world is extremely difficult, as some countries, like the US, do not have a central registrar recording all the tests across the nation. Further complicating the matter are the conflicting numbers even within each country; the usage of different time measurements; and delays in reporting. These factors make it even harder to keep track and say with certainty which nation has the highest number of tests per capita. Moreover, Germany's center for disease control, the Robert Koch Institute, has criticized Germany's methods of testing, complaining for example that too many asymptomatic individuals were being tested. The RKI called for an end to this practice on the grounds that Germany could risk running out of tests. Therefore, asymptomatic people are currently not being recommended for testing. Claim: Germany is allegedly considering issuance of "immunity certificates" to allow individuals who have recovered from the virus to move about freely Reality: The origin of this rumor appears to be a quote by a scientist interviewed by German news magazine Der Spiegel, and reported by Deutsche Welle, who suggested it in connection with a potential research project. It was then picked up by The Telegraph in the UK and Business Insider in the US and reported as German government policy. German virologists are currently working on a test that would determine if a recovered person has antibodies that make them immune to the virus. However, the scientific consensus at the moment is that there is no way to measure the length or strength of such immunity, with estimates varying as widely as a few weeks to a year. Therefore, such certificates are not being seriously considered by the German government as a method to combat the spread of the disease. Watch video 01:35 Share Coronavirus and the Fake News outbreak Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3aNi2 Coronavirus and the Fake News outbreak Read more: Coronavirus vaccine: 'Clinical tests' in Germany soon Claim: Germany's death rate is so low due to advanced planning and an excellent healthcare system Reality: Germany does have a robust public healthcare system that for now appears to be weathering the storm. As in many countries, however, medical professionals in respiratory and intensive care report being massively overworked, and there is a risk of running out of protective equipment. While Germany has enough hospitals, they are chronically understaffed, and medical students are now helping out in the most overwhelmed units. Statistics about the number of intensive care beds in the country are often cited as proof of Germany's superior preparedness to handle this crisis. However, German officials report disparate figures. The German Association of Hospitals says there are 40,000 beds, which is about 49 for every 100,000 of Germany's 82 million inhabitants. The Registrar for Intensive Care Beds says there are 24,000, which is only about 29 for every 100,000 people. Watch video 02:16 Share Curbing the coronavirus Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3YLwx Germany aims to contain coronavirus Read more: Coronavirus: In Germany, medical students step up to fight COVID-19 As for advanced planning, Germany's lockdown and social distancing regulations were put in place more than a week after fellow EU members France, Austria, and Spain had imposed similar policies. Despite what was happening in Italy in early March, Germany was actually much slower to react than its neighbors. However, behind Germany's as-yet low mortality rate is a confluence of many other factors. These include the country's federal system of government, which means there are hundreds of health officials overseeing the pandemic response across the 16 states, rather than one centralized response from the country's national Health Ministry. Claim: The US government is trying to steal Germany's vaccines Reality: One of the first coronavirus stories from Germany to be widely reported globally came from an article in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, which claimed that the administration of President Trump was trying to woo the Tübingen-based biopharmaceutical company CureVac. The paper quoted an anonymous source claiming that Washington was offering a substantial financial incentive to develop a vaccine "only for the US." Watch video 03:56 Why is everyone so interested in CureVac? Read more: Search for coronavirus vaccine turns spotlight on German biotech firms After the quote was translated, it was reported by The Guardian and other news outlets. Since then, however, it has been denied by US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, German Health Minister Jens Spahn, and CureVac itself. Moreover, CureVac is just one of dozens of German firms racing to create a vaccine, and Germany is just one of the many countries whose scientific community is now focused on immunization for COVID-19. Claim: One reason Germany's mortality rate is low is because Germans immediately stuck to the rules about social distancing Reality: This is a misplaced belief circulated on social media, likely based on old stereotypes of the German national character rather than actual evidence. There are no hard statistics, but widespread anecdotal evidence would suggest otherwise. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel first suggested on March 18 that Germans stay at home as much as possible and refrain from meeting in groups, thousands of social media users complained that as it was beautiful weather, and the local ice cream dealers and cafes remained open. Nothing appeared to have changed about public life other than a lack of toilet paper. Watch video 00:34 Merkel: 'Our own behavior is currently our most effective measure' Read more: Germany warns against easing coronavirus restrictions despite progress Even after restaurants and non-essential shops were closed and fines were introduced for gathering in groups of more than two, the rules are still being flouted. Berlin police had to ask concerned citizens to stop clogging up the emergency line with reports of rule breakers, and the city's club scene is reportedly still going strong by means of underground raves. People are not supposed to stop and sit in parks or face a penalty, yet this is how Berlin parks looked this past weekend: *In reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, unless otherwise specified, DW uses figures provided by the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Coronavirus Resource Center in the United States. JHU updates figures in real time, collating data from world health organizations, state and national governments and other public official sources, all of whom have their own systems for compiling information. Germany's national statistics are compiled by its public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). These figures depend on data transmission from state and local levels and are updated around once a day, which can lead to deviation from JHU.Every evening, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.

GFCI 27 Rank

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Liberal Treated With Hydroxychloroquine Hopes He Still Dies Of COVID-19 To Prove Trump Is Stupid

Liberal Treated With Hydroxychloroquine Hopes He Still Dies Of COVID-19 To Prove Trump Is Stupid NEW YORK, NY—When Jeffrey Walton tested positive for COVID-19, he hoped for a speedy recovery. But since he has been treated with hydroxychloroquine, the experimental treatment President Donald Trump has been touting, he now hopes he dies quickly to help prove that Trump is an idiot. While Trump has been giving people hope that hydroxychloroquine could save lives, his political opponents have called it false hope and claimed Trump has no idea what he’s talking about. Walton, a lifelong Democrat and progressive, had joined in calling Trump “irresponsible” and an “ignoramus” and now has an opportunity to prove it by simply dying. “It’s such an opportunity, I don’t want to pass it up,” Walton said. Doctor Glenn Logan, Walton’s physician, says he’s been up and down. “After we gave him the hydroxychloroquine, he got really excited about the idea of dying to prove Trump is dumb, and his good mood helped his condition, and he started to improve. Because that would only help Trump, his getting healthier made him depressed, which caused his condition to deteriorate. Which made him really happy. Which helped him recover and... Well, it’s been a weird cycle.” Dr. Logan has been warning Walton that there is a chance he could fully recover. Walton is trying to prepare himself for this -- a world where everything isn’t black and white and Trump can be right about some things -- but he insists he’d much rather die. Get Free Access To Our Brand New Site: Not the Bee After creating The Babylon Bee in six literal days, Adam Ford rested. But he rests no longer. Introducing Not the Bee — a brand new humor-based news site run by Adam himself. It's loaded with funny content and all the best features of a social network. And the best part? Everyone with a subscription to The Bee gets full access at no extra cost. Get FREE Access *with premium subscription to The Babylon Bee

Climate change: For big emissions reductions, we need to think small

Small-scale clean energy and low carbon technologies—such as solar panels, smart appliances and electric bicycles—are more likely to push society toward meeting climate goals than large-scale technologies, according to a new study from a team of international researchers. The findings, published today in Science, suggest governments and investors around the world should prioritize small-scale, low carbon technologies in policy design and research development in order to reduce emissions responsible for climate change in a more efficient and just way. Your browser does not support the video tag. The study authors make their case for small-scale climate change solutions. For years, scientists have issued stark warnings that, without drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, we will further warm the planet and increasingly experience "substantial" consequences—wildfires, droughts, flooding, coral reef die-offs, food shortages. A groundbreaking 2018 study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the planet is on a trajectory to warm by as much as 2.7-degrees Fahrenheit (compared to pre-industrial temperatures) by 2040. The message from climate scientists has been clear and consistent—we have to act fast. In the new study, researchers examined how to best attack the problem with available technologies. They collected information on a wide assortment of energy technologies and examined their viability to help push countries toward meeting international climate change goals, defined in the study as needing to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half within the next decade and to net-zero by 2050. They tested how well each technology performed in cost, innovation, accessibility, social return, equality of access, investment risk and other characteristics. The team divided technologies into two categories: "lumpy" technologies such as nuclear power, carbon capture, high speed transit, whole building retrofits; and "granular" technologies such as solar panels, electricity storage batteries, heat pumps, smart thermostats, electric bikes, and shared taxis. They found the granular options "can help drive faster and fairer progress towards climate targets," said lead author Charlie Wilson, a researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, in a statement. "Big new infrastructure costing billions is not the best way to accelerate decarbonization," Wilson said. "Governments, firms, investors, and citizens should instead prioritize smaller-scale solutions, which deploy faster. This means directing funding, policies, incentives, and opportunities for experimentation away from the few big and towards the many small." Wilson and colleagues wrote the granular tech was "associated with faster diffusion, lower investment risk, faster learning, more opportunities to escape lock-in, more equitable access, more job creation, and higher social returns on innovation investment." They cautioned that small-scale technology is not always the answer—for example, there are no alternatives for planes or industrial plants. "Smaller scale innovations are not a panacea," said co-author Nuno Bento, a researcher at the University Institute of Lisbon, in a statement. However, these smaller technologies are, in general, quicker to get to market and less complex. This accessibility means more jobs—which makes them an easier sell for policymakers crafting climate change plans. "Large 'silver bullet' technologies like nuclear power or carbon capture storage are politically seductive," said co-author Arnulf Brubler, a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in a statement. "But larger scale technologies and infrastructures absorb large shares of available public resources without delivering the rapid decarbonization we need." See the full study here.

Arsenal 2020/21: Areas for Improvement.

Arsenal 2020/21: Areas for Improvement. The departure of Arsene Wenger, The arrival of Unai Emery, the sacking of Unai Emery, and finally the return of Mikel Arteta, the two seasons since the change in guard at Arsenal have been less than ideal. In Mikel Arteta’s short time, there have been vast improvements at Arsenal, but there are still glaring loopholes that need strengthening in the transfer market. We look at the areas Arsenal need improvement in and talk about suitable players to fill the void. Area for Improvement: Central Defence Central defence for Arsenal has been a problem for more than five years now, with the Gunners spending cheap in the market or spending big but with no proper vision to improve their defensive area. The summer market of 2020 should finally be the time Arsenal solve their defensive issues without messing about in the window. Player to Buy: Merih Demiral We talked about Dayot Upamecano as a potential signing for the Red Devils, but the Gunners could also do a lot worse than bringing in the French Centre-Back. But the player we are going to talk about is Merih Demiral of Juventus. The Turkish CB was fantastic for Sassuolo at the back end of last season, Which prompted the Bianconeri to sign the ex-Sporting Lisbon man. Demiral’s time at Juventus though, has been frustrating for the player as he has only started five league games all season. Demiral is a monster in the air and a good passer of the ball which would suit Mikel Arteta’s style of play, and due to the lack of game-time, the player would be willing to make a move to north London, and his asking price should also be relatively low, and it’s a move that the Gunners should make. Area of Improvement: Central Defensive Midfield Lucas Torreira has been one of the few positives for the Gunners over the last two years; the Uruguayan has filled the void of a destroyer in Midfield that they lacked for a very long time. Lucas, though, has his injury problems and has repeatedly talked about his difficulties settling in England. It’s possible he may want a move away, pair that with the fact that the 13-time league winners already need bodies in midfield, so it’d be a good time for them to buy a defensive midfielder. Player to Buy: Pape Gueye Pape Gueye is another one of the gems produced by the well-renowned academy of Le Havre. The Frenchman is one of the most sought-after central midfield prospects in the world. Le Havre man averages 3.6 tackles plus interceptions per90, which is more than Lucas Torreira’s 2.5, albeit in a weaker competition. Gueye also has an eye for a pass as he completes 3.8 long balls per90. His positioning is also that of a matured midfield player. All of those qualities make us believe that he could be a great piece of shrewd business by the Gunners. Area of Improvement: Creative Midfielder Mesut Özil has been a great performer for Arsenal Football Club, the German has been one of the best playmakers in Europe for the entirety of 2010s. But the retired international has slowed down with age. In his best season at Arsenal, he averaged 3.5 key-passes per90. In 2015/16, the same season he created 146 chances in league play which is the highest total in any league since the records began, that has now gone down to 2 key-passes per90 and only 60 chances created in 2018/19. Therefore, Replacing the German is essential for Mikel Arteta in the summer transfer window. Player to Buy: Jack Grealish Jack Grealish this season has been out of this world for Aston Villa, the Englishman has spearheaded the Villans into a position in which they may be able to survive relegation. He has operated from the left of Villa’s attack this season, but his future lies as a creative player in the Midfield. Grealish has seven goals and six assists in league competition this season, which contributes to 67% of Villa’s goals. He also averages 2.7 key-passes per90, which is only bettered by Kevin de Bruyne. Grealish has age on his side and his goal threat when compared to Mesut Özil. Sure, Grealish wouldn’t have the freedom he has for Aston Villa at Arsenal, but with quality players surrounding him, he could be an excellent addition for the Gunners. Area of Improvement: Left Winger Gabriel Martinelli and Aubameyang have filled in at left-wing for Arsenal this season, while being very prolific from the position the latter is much more dangerous when playing from the centre. Martinelli, much like Aubameyang, has qualities that suit a striker more than a left-winger, and It’s very much likely that one of Alex Lacazette and Aubameyang could be shipped off in the summer. So it’d be obvious to transform Martinelli into a No.9. Bukayo Saka, who has had a great season from left-back, is a natural winger, but the talented Englishman is only 18 years of age, and it’d be a big ask for him to be a starting winger at Arsenal. So that makes it very much logical to Buy a nourished left winger in the upcoming transfer window. Player to Buy: Milot Rashica Milot Rashica is one of the lesser talked about players in Bundesliga at the moment. The Kosovar has been one of the most consistent wide-forwards in the league since the start of the 2018/19 season. The Werder Bremen man has sixteen goals, and nine assists in 39 starts in league play in that period, which is a pretty impressive tally considering he’s playing for a team currently sitting 19th in the Bundesliga. Rashica is an impressive dribbler with 2.2 dribbles complete per90, combining that with his goal-threat and his playmaking ability, the Kosovar could be a smart signing for the Gunners.

A History of Grand Seiko – 1975 to 1988 – The Grand Seiko Guy

Introduction The first Grand Seiko Traditionally, we look at the history of Grand Seiko as covering two very distinct, and separate, eras. There is the “vintage” period that commenced with the introduction of the first Grand Seiko on December 18th 1960, and continued through until the mid 1970’s with the final appearance of Grand Seiko in volume 2 of the 1975 Seiko catalogue; and then there is the “modern” period, with the debut of the Grand Seiko quartz range in 1988 and continuing on through to today. Seiko Catalogue 1975 volume 2 The image above shows that final appearance of vintage mechanical Grand Seikos in a Seiko catalogue. As can be seen, not only were there insufficient references remaining in the range to fill a whole page in the catalogue, but Grand Seiko was seemingly not even significant enough to warrant its own page, with King Seiko references filling up the remaining space. Fast forward to the end of the 1980’s, and the new Grand Seiko range is introduced in the 1989 catalogue with four references taking pride of place on page 1, and a full page “hero” shot opposite (whilst Grand Seiko was “reborn” in 1988, there are no domestic catalogues from that year, so the new range’s first appearance in a catalogue was the following year, with the same layout featuring in both 1989 volumes) . Seiko 1989 catalogue One might be tempted to just leave it at that – the Grand Seiko story runs from 1960 through to 1975, and then there is a 13 year gap until we pick up again in 1988 with the launch of Grand Seiko quartz. Your author though takes a different – no doubt rather contentious – view on the Grand Seiko story. Why contentious? Because in his mind, there was no significant gap at all. The vintage Grand Seiko era did not finish in 1975. In fact, it ran continuously from 1960 through until the mid 1980’s – right up until just before the “relaunch” of Grand Seiko in 1988. And the evidence for this crazy rewriting of the Grand Seiko story? It’s staring us right in the face on the first page of the Seiko 1975 volume 2 catalogue – the very same catalogue that featured the last of the vintage mechanical Grand Seikos pictured earlier. Seiko 1975 V2 catalogue But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First, we need to take a step back to 1969, with the introduction of the most important wristwatch of the 20th century. (The full story of the early years of Seiko quartz will be saved for a future article – for now, a brief overview will suffice to get us to 1975.) A brief history of Seiko quartz, 1969-1975 Seiko Astron (c) Seiko 1969 On Christmas Day 1969, Seiko launched the world’s first quartz wristwatch – the Astron. No watch, neither before nor since, has ever had such a significant impact on the watch industry, nor has one ever more clearly defined the beginning of the end of one horological epoch, and the start of another. I write “the beginning of the end” for good reason, because whilst it is perhaps a commonly held perception that the introduction of the Astron created an overnight change in the watch landscape, it would in fact be many years before watches powered by quartz movements truly began to gain significant market share. So much is clear from a study of the Seiko catalogues of the early 1970’s. The initial production run of Astrons for the launch of the watch was in November 1969, but so few were actually manufactured – just 100 units – that the first Astron never even made it into any of the Seiko catalogues. In fact, a quick perusal of those early regular catalogues shows no quartz watches in any of the 1970 or 1971 issues – all of which lead with Grand Seiko. 1972 We start to see quartz watches in the 1971 Special Luxury Catalogue, with them making their first appearance in a regular catalogue in 1972. That publication features four references with quartz movements – compared to no fewer than 35 Grand Seikos. Even with steel cases and bracelets, those quartz watches (a pair of references with 35-series movements, and a pair with 38-series) were priced from 135,000 Yen up to 185,000 Yen – for comparison the Grand Seiko 6186-8000 VFA was just 100,000 Yen. Seiko 1972 catalogue – 35SQ/C Seiko 1972 catalogue – 38SQW 1972’s catalogues represented close to the peak of the width (if one can have just a thing) of the Grand Seiko range, with 42 different references featured. Over the course of the next three years, that number would rapidly decline, whist at the same time the number of high-end quartz watches increased at an exponential rate. As mentioned above, it is not in the purview of this article to comprehensively cover the growth of the quartz range, but it is worth walking through some of the key branding and marketing messages that one can glean from the catalogues. 1973 Volume 1 of the 1973 catalogue (with the number of Grand Seikos more than halving to 19, and the number of quartz references going up six-fold to 25) debuts in a regular catalogue, quartz watches branded as “VFA”, or “Very Fine Adjusted” – a term of course “borrowed” from the Grand Seiko VFA’s that were still in production. First introduced in the 1972 Special Luxury Catalogue, with these VFA’s we see Seiko start to differentiate references in their quartz range from a marketing perspective. Prior to this, with just a handful of models available, simply branding them as “Quartz” was sufficient. With the rapid expansion of the range – primarily through the introduction of more affordable references – it clearly became necessary to communicate just what it was about the higher-end pieces that justified their elevated pricing. Not only do we see new references such as those driven by the 39SQW (3923) and 39SQ (3922) movements branded VFA, but interestingly, the existing 38SQW 010 and 014 models (3823 movement) that previously were branded simply “Quartz” were, in the second catalogue of 1973, additionally branded as VFA’s. Look carefully at the dials of the first two watches featured on the following two scans. 1973 V1 1973 V2 1974 By the end of 1974, based on what is listed in the Seiko catalogues, we are down to just ten Grand Seiko references, with no fewer than 82 quartz watches featured – 15 of which are branded as VFA. In the second volume of the 1974 catalogue we are introduced to yet another branding level within the quartz range – this one above that of the VFA’s. Powered by the 3883 movement, which was accurate to an incredible +/- 2 seconds per month, are two variants of the 3883-7000 “Superior”. 1975 The “Superior” branding would remain at the pinnacle of the quartz range for many years to come. As will become clear, an appreciation of the Seiko quartz branding history is critical to an understanding of the rationale behind this entire article. By the end of 1975, just 9 Grand Seikos remain in the range – their last catalogue appearance. And quartz? The second volume of the 1975 catalogue features no fewer than 165 quartz references powered by twenty seven different movements. Of those 165 references, one was a Superior, there were 21 VFA’s, and we see the introduction of no fewer than eight… Seiko Grand Quartz Seiko Grand Quartz QNK020 Seiko 1975 volume 2 catalogue Pictured above is one of those first eight Seiko Grand Quartz – which was available with either white (QNK020 – as pictured) or blue (QNK021) textured dials. By 1975 – more than half a decade after the introduction of the seminal Astron – quartz was really beginning to gain a significant share of the market, with the cheapest reference in the catalogue priced at just 32,000 Yen. Even at this price though, it is worth keeping a sense of proportion. Just a few examples for comparison – a 6139 automatic chronograph could be had for 19,000 Yen; the 6105 diver came in at 20,000 Yen; the 6117 world timer was priced at a relative bargain at just 15,500 Yen; and a basic day-date 5 Actus could be had for under 10,000 Yen. Six of the eight introductory Seiko Grand Quartz were presented in solid 18K gold cases, with prices ranging from 460,000 to 1,350,000 Yen. Yup – 1.35 million Yen. The launch of the range was clearly very significant for Seiko, with – as pictured earlier – Grand Quartz references featuring on the very first page of 1975’s volume 2 catalogue. Launched alongside Grand Quartz were also King Quartz branded watches. It wasn’t just Grand Seiko that made their last appearance in 1975’s V2 catalogue, we say farewell to King Seiko as well. It is very clear that Seiko were making a strategic move to shift their existing loyal King and Grand Seiko customers onto the King and Grand Quartz lines. But the year or so roughly covering the latter half of 1975 and the first half of 1976 was rather a confusing one from a sub-brand positioning viewpoint. In the 1972 Special Luxury Catalogue, Seiko debuted the “VFA” branding to selected watches in the quartz range. As discussed earlier, it was no longer sufficient to simply brand everything as just “Quartz” – the range was expanding too quickly, and it made complete sense to introduce some stratification. 1974 saw the introduction of the Superiors. With the Superiors and VFA’s sitting at the top of the range, one might expect the Grand Quartz to slip in directly underneath them. However, this isn’t actually how we see things presented in the catalogue. The first couple of dozen pages of the 1975 V2 catalogue feature precious metal watches. Then comes one Superior and the quartz VFA’s, followed not by the Grand Quartz, but by watches powered by non-VFA 38-series movements. The pair of steel cased Grand Quartz are tucked away at the bottom of the second page of these watches. This does seem to be rather odd – particularly given the prominence of the precious metal Grand Quartz appearing on the first page of the catalogue. Many of the 38-series watches appearing immediately after the VFA’s were priced higher than the 80,000 Yen asking price of the newly introduced Grand Quartz, and one can only assume that this is the reason for them appearing first. The three movements that feature in these watches (38- time only, 3802- time and date, and 3803- time and day-date) were rated to an accuracy of +/- 10 seconds per month, compared to the +/- 5 seconds per month of the 3823 powered VFA’s. The 4843 caliber we find in this first generation of Seiko Grand Quartz was as accurate as the VFA’s – +/- 5 seconds per month. Clearly the entire range was in flux at this point – we have to consider not only the fact that quartz was beginning to take over from mechanical, but also that within quartz itself, there were generational evolutions underway. It is the overlap of – as we will soon discover – the phasing out of one generation of quartz calibers and the introduction of the next that is probably behind this confusing presentation in the catalogue. Over the course of this article we will be presenting scans of all pages of the Seiko catalogues that feature Grand Quartz, detailing every single one of the 59 references that exist. So without further delay, let’s kick off by looking at those featured in this first catalogue. Seiko 1975 V2 catalogue The 1975 V2 catalogue didn’t just introduce the Seiko Grand Quartz range, it also introduced a brand new set of catalogue codes for the watches featured within – a six character code comprised of three letters and three numbers that, no doubt, possibly made some kind of sense to someone at the time, but it’s all gobbledegook to us! One thing that is clearer when comparing the 1975 V1 and V2 catalogues is that the Grand Quartz range wasn’t just about filling the gap created by the impending departure of the mechanical Grand Seikos, but it was also going to take over from another range in the catalogues – the quartz VFA’s. We can see three specific examples of this, as there are three 3823-based VFA references in the V1 catalogue that have exact counterparts as 4843-based Grand Quartz – 38SQW 026 38SQW 016 38SQW 016 HNK624 HNK604 HNK60G This is about as clear evidence as you could hope to find for the fact that Seiko planned for the 4843 Grand Quartz references to directly take over from the 3823 VFA’s. Interestingly, two of the Grand Quartz references were actually cheaper than the VFA’s that they replaced. The HNK604 was priced at 1,250,000 Yen compared to 1,350,000 for its 38SQW 026 predecessor; the HNK604 came in at 800,000 as opposed to 880,000 Yen for the VFA. The HNK60G an 38SQW 016 (on leather strap) were both priced at 580,000 Yen. The remaining Grand Quartz watches in the catalogue were all new designs. We have a pair of 18K gold cased watches with integrated bracelets – one in yellow gold, and one in white – HNK804 HNK018 White gold Seikos are typically priced a little higher than their yellow gold equivalents – here the yellow gold HNK804 was 1,250,000 Yen, with the white gold HNK 018 priced at 1,350,000. HNK644 was a more conservatively styled yellow gold dress watch on a leather band, at a price of 460,000 – HNK644 And finally, we have a pair of steel cased watches featuring textured cases, integrated bracelets, a decagonal bezel, and textured dial – one in white (QNK020) , and one in blue (QNK021) – priced at 80,000 Yen. QNK020 QNK021 We led this section of the article with a live shot of QNK020. Here is a shot of the blue dialed QNK021 along with a couple of detail macros. Note that the bezel on this watch was not rotated correctly when we first acquired it and these photos were taken. This has since been corrected at a service. Seiko 1975 Special Luxury Catalogue Given the range had just been introduced in the second half of the year, it is perhaps unsurprising that for the Special Luxury Catalogue – published in time for the holiday season – there were no additional Grand Quartz references introduced. The catalogue featured the same six 18K gold references that appeared in the regular V2 catalogue. Below are scans of the pages featuring those watches. Seiko 1976 volume 1 catalogue The confusing presentational order of the 1975 V2 catalogue was fortunately short-lived. Following a brief few pages presenting a selection of precious metal dress watches, and early liquid crystal display digital watches, a more logical hierarchy ensues. First up is the new 4883 caliber Superior, and then we have a page featuring a single 38- and eight 39-series VFA’s – the last time they would appear in the catalogues. Grand Quartz comes next, followed by King Quartz. Some logic at last! The six 18K gold references from the last two catalogues are dropped from the range presented here (although as we will show shortly, two of them do make one final catalogue appearance). From 1975’s V2 catalogue, only the two steel-cased watches survive the cull, and are joined by eight new references. Let’s first take a look at the full catalogue pages featuring Grand Quartz. The first thing to note is the layout – as will become a common theme for the next few years, we have a full-page “hero” shot, followed by a section devoted just to Grand Quartz to show the rest of the range. Whereas when the range was launched, every model utilised the day-date 4843 movement, here we see that the customer was presented with more movement options, with references also powered by the 4842 date, and 4820 time-only calibers. Intriguingly, the “hero” shot doesn’t actually feature the top-of-the-range models. Instead we see a pair of watches with the same case and dial design, but one gold capped on a leather strap, and one stainless steel on a bracelet. QNK824 QNK040 Turning the page, and the first watch featured is the true range-topper, the HSS (Hardened Stainless Steel) cased QBK050, priced at 100,000 Yen. QNK050 Next come the pair of decagonal bezeled white and blue dial watches that we are familiar with from 1975 V2 (where a watch has been pictured before in an earlier catalogue, we won’t repeat the image again), and then the final 4843 based reference in this catalogue, the 73,000 Yen QNK030 – a watch with a “TV” shaped case on a black leather strap. QNK030 The middle row of the page features the two new references in the Grand Quartz range that are based on the date-only 4842 movement. QNJ604 is a gold plated steel cased reference priced at 75,000 Yen with the same case design as the QNK030 above; and at 63,000 Yen, QNJ020 is a date-only version of the QHK040, but on a leather strap not a stainless steel bracelet. QNJ604 QNJ020 Rounding out the range are a pair of time-only 4840 caliber watches – the Gold Cap QNH800 priced at 74,000 Yen, and the stainless steel QNH010 that takes its place as the cheapest watch in the range at just 58,000 Yen. Both watches feature the same case and dial design of the QNJ020 and QHK040. QNH800 QNH010 Crêt D’or 1976 catalogue 1975 was the last year that Seiko produced a “Special Luxury Catalogue” (“SLC”). These catalogues – starting in 1969 and published each holiday season – contained the top-tier watches in the Seiko range. We have covered all of the SLC’s featuring Grand Seikos in previous articles. From 1974 onwards we start to see the gradual development of the Credor brand – a story very well covered in an article written by Anthony Kable that can be found on his website Plus9Time. As per Anthony’s article, the first “Crêt D’or” catalogue actually dates from 1975, but it is not of interest to us for the purpose of this article as it didn’t feature any Grand Quartz – they appeared in that year’s Special Luxury Catalogue. As with the watches, Seiko’s catalogue production and content also has some confusing transitional periods! The 1976 Crêt D’or catalogue however featured a pair of the 18K gold cased watches that debuted in the 1975V2 Seiko catalogue. The two references – HNK644, and HNK018 – appeared on page 13 of the Crêt D’or catalogue, and we present a scan of that page below. Seiko 1977 volume 1 catalogue Note for those paying attention – we haven’t skipped a catalogue – there is no 1976 volume 2 catalogue. Very little changed within the Grand Quartz range from 1976 into the first half of 1977. In fact, this catalogue features almost the exact same offer as that of a year previously. With the retirement of the 38- and 39-series VFA’s, the catalogue leads with the Superiors, and then immediately following those we get the Grand Quartz. All references that appeared in the 1976 volume 1 catalogue make a repeat appearance in this one, and just one new reference is added to the range. First up, here are the scans of the two pages featuring the Grand Quartz – first up the “hero” shot, and then a page listing all eleven Grand Quartz watches. The newly added reference should be relatively simple to spot – it’s a blue-dialed variant of the range-topping HSS cased QNK050 – the QNK061. QNK061 Whilst it’s clear from the catalogue shot that this reference has a textured dial, it’s not easy to see exactly that the texture is. Here’s a shot from an example of this reference from our collection, along with a detail shot of the dial that shows the patterned texture more clearly. Seiko 1977 volume 2 catalogue Whereas moving from the 1976 volume 1 catalogue to volume 1 of 1977 we see little change – with all references from 1976 appearing once again, and just one new model launched, there is a wholesale change between the content shown in the 1977 volume 1 and volume 2 catalogues. Let’s take a look at the single page from each catalogue side by side (both catalogues introduce the Grand Quartz range with the same hero shot). Even at this relatively low resolution we can spot what appears to have changed. The pair of original steel cased watches with decagonal bezels with blue and white dials have been dropped, as has the blue dial HSS cased reference that was only introduced in the previous catalogue. With regards additions, there are two new references in the first row – a gold metal variant of the HSS flagship, and a day-date variant of the tv-shape cased gold plated date model. All other references would seem to carry over from the volume 1 catalogue to volume 2. But in fact, not a single reference from volume 1 appears in volume 2 – all ten watches featured are brand new references, so it’s probably best to go through them all. QNK904 QNK864 First up the two references that initially appeared to be the only new ones. QNK904 is an HGP (Hard Gold Plated) version of the QNK050 seen in the previous catalogue, priced at the same 100,000 Yen. Note however that the bracelet is a different model. QNK864 is a day-date version of the earlier QNJ604, with the addition of the day complication upping the price by 5,000 to 80,000 Yen. Note that the catalogue photo doesn’t really capture the texture of the dial on QNK904. Although the example in our private collection doesn’t have the correct bracelet, we do feel it worth sharing photographs of it here to show just what that dial actually looks like. With the two new references out of the way, we’ll look at the remaining eight by comparing them with what came before. Hopefully by looking at them side by side we will be able to identify what has changed. (For those reading on a mobile device, it might make more sense to view this next section in landscape mode as then you should be able to see both watches on screen at the same time.) For all these comparisons, we will be showing the reference from the 1977 V1 catalogue first (on the left if you are viewing on a desktop device, or a mobile device in landscape mode), and that from the 1977 V2 catalogue second (or on the right). QNK050 QNK080 QNK080 is the replacement for QNK050 – the range topping reference with a hardened stainless steel case (“HSS”). At first sight, we might be led to think that there is a difference in the dial textures between the two watches, but this is actually not the case. At times, it is very difficult to discern dial details just from catalogue photos. Here, we know from examining actual watches in the metal that the two dials are actually the same – indeed, they even have the same dial code of 4843-8030. Here is a live photo of an example of QNK080 from our private collection where the incredible texture of these dials can be truly appreciated. At the bottom of the text in each photo is mentioned the movement number (4843) and then in brackets, the case and dial code. The case and dial codes mentioned miss off the last digit that we actually find on the dials and case-backs, which is – in most instances – a zero. What we can learn from the codes shown here is that not only did this reference have a change of catalogue code, but also case code. For the watch appearing in the 1977 V1 catalogue, we would see stamped on the case-back the code 4843-8050, and for that appearing in the V2 catalogue, we would see 4843-8100. Beyond these code changes, it would be extremely challenging to understand whether this is simply a code change, or whether in fact there are material differences between the two references. Fortunately, we own an example of the blue-dialed 4843-8050, and a white dialed 4843-8100, and so can do an in-hand comparison. From the front, there is appears to be no difference in construction between the two references, but when we turn them over… 4843-8050/8100 comparison On the left is the earlier 4843-8050, and on the right, the later 4843-8100. We can see right away what has changed – the -8100 has a slimmer case-back,, and the size of the battery hatch is reduced. Digging in to our library we were able to pull out some reference material that details these two movements – the earlier -8050 uses the 4843A movement, and the later -8100 the 4843B movement. You can see from the photos on the documents scanned below the different size of the battery in these two movements, with the 4843A using an SB-08 battery, and the 4843B an SB-A4 4843A and B Here’s a close-up of the movement photos in the above documents. Whilst there are some differences in the parts used between the two movements – most notably the crystal oscillator itself – the dimensions are identical. It is the reduced profile of the smaller battery in the 4843B movement that allows a slimmer case-back to be fitted, reducing the depth of the watch from 10.9mm to 10.25mm. It is this movement upgrade, from 484xA to 484xB that is behind the refresh of the watches in the 1977 V2 catalogue. <<<Update April 13 2020.>>> Following the publication of this article, Anthony Kable of Plus9Time contacted us to share a scan of an issue of Seiko Watch News from June 1977 that provides confirmation of the conclusions that we independently arrived at as detailed above. The newsletter details the changeover from the 48xxA to 48xxB movements for the Grand Quartz, King Quartz, and Superior ranges. We provide a detailed look at this information in a new article that you can find here. <<<Update ends.>>> For the remaining watches, we will simply provide side by side comparisons of the 484xA caliber watches with their 484xB caliber replacements with no commentary, apart from pointing out that the lug-width given for the updated models is listed as 18mm, a reduction from 19mm for the earlier ones, and a bracelet change moving from QNK040 to QNK090. QNK030 QNK824 QNK040 QNJ604 QNJ020 QNH800 QNH010 QNK070 QNK884 QNK090 QNJ624 QNJ030 QNH820 QNH030 Below are the full scans of the two pages from the 1977 volume 2 catalogue featuring Grand Quartz. Seiko 1978 volume 1 catalogue Where it concerns the Grand Quartz range, this catalogue is identical in content and layout to the one preceding it. For what it’s worth, here are scans of the two pages from this catalogue featuring Grand Quartz. Seiko 1978 volume 2 catalogue Whereas the previous catalogue showed no changes to the range, 1978’s volume 2 marked a significant step forward for the Grand Quartz offer, with the introduction of the 9943 movement. Whilst the 4843 movement was accurate to +/- 5 seconds per month, the thermo-compensated 9943 movement was accurate to +/- 10 seconds per year. Before taking a look in detail at the new references, here is a gallery of the three pages from this catalogue that feature Grand Quartz, starting with a new hero shot featuring the Gold Cap QGB824 Clearly space was not at a premium in this catalogue, with separate pages being given to the new 9943 based references and the older 4843 based ones, despite the fact they could have all fitted on the one page. In this launch of the 994x series, only the day-date 9943 movement makes an appearance, so unsurprisingly two of the carry-overs from the 484x references provide a time only and time and date option to the offer. The two 4843 caliber based references add tv-shaped case and cap gold on leather options, both of which are not covered by the new introductions. As is often the case, the newly introduced references can be looked at in pairs, so that is what we will do… QGB804 QGB824 It’s interesting that the offer included a pair of what on the face of it are two watches performing a very similar function. What is also interesting to note is the prices of these two watches. QGB804 is clearly a direct replacement for the 4843 caliber QNK904. Both watches feature HGP (hard gold plated) cases, but the 9943 based watch adds a textured dial that perhaps was intended to visually differentiate the two models. Certainly the 50% increase in price between the 4843 based watch and its 9483 replacement was substantial, but given the aforementioned 6-fold increase in accuracy, we rather doubt it would have been much of a challenge for the salesman of the time to convince his customer to make the upgrade! Here’s a studio shot and macro detail of QGB804 from our private collection. The inclusion of the Gold Cap QGB824 in the range is perhaps somewhat of a mystery. Functionally and aesthetically it does the same job as the QGB804 – perhaps it is there to prevent there being quite such a significant price gap between watches at the top of the range. There’s no doubting though that it is a very desirable reference – as usual, live photos of an example from our collection show details that are simply not possible to appreciate from the catalogue shot alone – QGB010 QGB011 From a price tier perspective, the above pair of watches can be viewed as replacing QNK050 and QNK061, reposted here for ease of reference – QNK050 QNK061 All of the watches are priced at the same 100,000 Yen, and we have white and dark dial variants. The newer references have arguably more interesting dial architecture, with raised and cutaway hour markers, but the watches clearly perform the same job. Here’s a studio shot of an example of reference QGB011 from our collection – So given we have seen earlier with the comparison between QGB804 and QGB824 there is a significant price premium for the upgrade to the 9943 movement, how did Seiko manage to do this? The answer – as so often is the case – is in the small print. The earlier 4843 based watches had HSS cases, whereas the newly introduced 9943 references are in regular stainless steel. This was a pretty clever move on Seiko’s behalf, and perhaps at the time when looking at brand new watches in the shop, there wasn’t much aesthetically to choose between an HSS and regular SS case. But for those of us who collect these watches more than 40 years down the line, the difference between the two case materials is substantial. Personally we would take an HSS 4843 over a SS 9943 any day of the week! The penultimate pair of twin-quartz watches are light and dark dialed replacements for an earlier 4843 reference – QGB040 QGB041 QGB040 is the 9943-based replacement for QNK030, at a 20,000 Yen premium (the earlier watch was priced at 70,000 Yen). It is joined in the range by the dark blue (almost black)-dialed QGB041. Wrapping up the Grand Quartz range in this catalogue, we have a pair of watches presented on leather straps. QGB020 QGB038 Somewhat surprisingly, this is the first time we see a day-date watch in the Grand Quartz range with the classic Seiko Grammar of Design case on a leather strap. Seiko 1979 volume 1 catalogue As we move into 1979, the entire Grand Quartz range shifts to twin-quartz calibers, with no 484x based references remaining in the offer. The introductory hero shot remains the same as that in the previous catalogue, followed by three pages showing a total of seventeen watches. All eight of the 9943 day-date references that were launched in the previous catalogue remain in the offer, joined by nine new watches. The new additions to the range can be broadly split into three categories. With the phasing out of the remaining 484x caliber watches, we see the introduction of a number of twin-quartz powered date (9942 movement) and time only (9940 movement) references; there are three new 9943 day-date watches that fill in some gaps in the offer; and finally, two watches utilising the new 9256 twin-quartz day-date movement from Daini-Seikosha. QGN804 QGN010 The time-only 9940 movement makes its debut in the two watches pictured above – one cased in HGP, priced at 90,000 Yen, and the second cased in stainless steel that becomes the cheapest watch in the Grand Quartz range, priced at 75,000 Yen. It’s interesting to note the use of the more expensive HGP (hardened gold plated) rather than the regular plating that we see on watches in lesser ranges. QGC020 QGC010 Also making an appearance for the first time is the 9942 time and date movement. As with the 9940, this is available in two watches, this time both in stainless steel on bracelets, but with different case designs. As we will see momentarily, the QGC020 is joined by its day-date equivalent. The QGC010 is the date-only version of the QGB040 that first appeared in volume 2 of the previous year’s catalogue. QGB604 QGB050 Two of the three new 9943 caliber references have the same case design seen earlier in QGC020. First up is the gold cap QGB604, presented on a brown leather strap, and second is the day-date version of the aforementioned QGC020, the QGB050. The price premium for the added day complication is 5,000 Yen. The final new reference utilising the 9943 movement is the hardened stainless steel QGB060. QGB060 QNK080 This watch restores a top of the line HSS cased watch to the range, something that had been missing since the 4843 caliber QNK080 (shown alongside it above for comparison) made its final appearance in the 1978 volume 1 catalogue. As mentioned, also debuting in this catalogue are the first Grand Quartz from Daini-Seikosha, running off the day-date 9256 caliber, which, like its 9943 counterpart, was also accurate to +/- 10 seconds per year. QGH010 QGH028 As is so often the case with vintage Seikos, the catalogue shots really don’t do these watches justice. Barely visible on the image of the QGH010 is an incredible lattice textured dial, and on the QGH028, a wonderful vertically brushed grey dial. Photographs of both watches from our private collection, along with macros to highlight the dial detail, are shown below. Seiko 1979 volume 2 catalogue Once again, we see all watches from the prior catalogue retained in the range, which is expanded by the introduction of a further eight new references. The same “hero” shot continues to be used to introduce the Grand Quartz section of the catalogue, with, again, three pages detailing the watches themselves. All of the references debuting in this catalogue are day-date models, with two new watches based on the Suwa 9943 movement, and the remaining six based on the 9256 movement from Daini. Intriguingly, there does appear to be somewhat of an overlap here, with the pair of Suwa watches being remarkably similar to two from Daini, so let’s start with those. QGB070 QGB071 First, the Suwa references. There is an undeniable “Genta-esque” feel to the QGB070/071, with their rounded octagonal bezels and bracelets bearing more than a passing resemblance to some of the famed designers more well known ouvres. Whether or not Gerald Genta had a hand in the design of these watches we don’t know, but it is interesting to note that 1979 was also the same year that the Credor Locomotive – a watch whose design most definitely was credited to Genta – was available. Possibly these are Seiko in-house designs – surely there can be no doubt that Seiko’s own designers would have had visibility of the Locomotive design as it was coming to fruition, and could have been heavily influenced by it – but to the best of our knowledge there has never been any confirmation either way. Whatever the truth of the matter is, there can be no denying that these (and indeed the Daini’s coming up next) are extremely attractive watches. Below is a photo of a blue-dialed QGB071 from our collection. The first new pair of 9256 caliber watches from Daini are also presented with a choice of white or blue dials. QGH050 QGH051 The similarity of these two references to the ones from Suwa is immediately obvious. What is not so clear from the catalogue photos is that QGH050 has a “snowflake” dial texture, with the blue dial QGH051 having a sunburst finish similar to that found on both QGB070 and 071. The Daini designs are also more complex than their Suwa “rivals” , with very interestingly sculpted case details – particularly around the crown, and opposite at 9 o’clock. QGH030 QGH038 QGH030 and QGH038 are a pair of white dialed watches that, whilst not having the sporty rounded octagonal bezels of QGH050/051, nevertheless have wonderfully shaped cases and integrated bracelets (once again with clear Genta influences). The catalogue photo of the QGH030 just about conveys the dial texture of the watch, which, similarly to the QGH050, has a “snowflake” finish. Rounding out the collection are a pair of watches with champagne and light blue sunburst dials. QGH040 QGH041 Can we detect the slight hand of Gerald Genta in this pair of watches? Unlike the earlier examples, there are no signs of rounded octagonal cases, or integrated bracelets here. But what about those “ears” on the case at 9 and 3 – a possible subtle nod to the Nautilus? Maybe that is stretching things a little too far, but there is no question that this catalogue introduces some exceptionally well – not to mention, intriguingly – designed watches! Seiko 1980 volume 1 catalogue The new decade kicks off with a catalogue featuring no fewer than thirty two Grand Quartz. This catalogue is notable because it records the moment that the Grand Quartz range was at its largest. Once more, we find every reference from the catalogue immediately preceeding it still in the range, with this time a further seven watches making their debut. Of those seven, five only ever appear in this single catalogue. Do we get a new hero shot to mark the milestone? Sadly not! Whilst the range expands to thirty two references, it still manages to fit onto just three catalogue pages – this time the first two pages are actually full. A quick glance at the final page will bring a sense of déjà vu – there are no further 9256 based references from Daini in this volume, and the page is identical to that from 1979’s volume 2. All of the new references are from Suwa, with no fewer than five being built on the time-only 9940 calibre, and one each on the 9942 date, and 9943 day-date movements. QGC030 QGB080 The two references with day and day-date complications are pictured above – QGC030 and QGB080. Both watches feature lightly textured cases and bracelets – the former featuring printed Roman numeral indices, and the latter raised and cutaway 3D applied indices. Here is a photo of QGB080 from our collection with a wonderfully patinated dial. Note also the intricately textured finish to the case. QGB080 QGN033 QGN048 QGN020 The first three of the 9940 time-only based references making their debut in this catalogue make a natural set together. All three have the same textured case and bracelet, but feature radically different dials. QGN033 features a stone “Tiger eye” dial – every example of this reference will be unique, and they are very hard to come by indeed. QGN048’s jet black dial is made from onyx, with a printed Roman numeral XII at 12. QGN020 features a dial that, whilst not quite so dramatic as its two close relatives, nonetheless is beautiful, with a textured “kira-zuri” finish. Once again, you really do have to see live photos of these references in order to truly appreciate just how stunning the are. Below we present a gallery featuring examples of all three of these references from our private collection, including some macro shots that show off the incredible finishing on both the dials and cases. The final two new 9940-caliber references in this catalogue – and indeed, the final two Seiko Grand Quartz references to be added to the range – are another pair of watches presented with a choice of white or dark coloured dials. QGN050 QGN051 The cases on this pair of watches feature a curved octagonal bezel that is probably about as circular as you could get and extends to the very edge of the top side of the case. The dark dial on QGN051 is not black, but rather a very, very deep blue, with a sunburst finish. Here’s a “live” photo of an example of this reference from our private collection – And with that final pair, we come to the end of the introduction of new Grand Quartz models in catalogues. Whilst the range would continue to exist in the catalogues right up until 1985, no new references were introduced, and we see a steady ramping down of the number watches in the range. For the remaining catalogues, we will present galleries of the pages featuring Grand Quartz, and list the references that were dropped from the range. Seiko 1980 volume 2 catalogue The references dropped from the range were as follows – QGB050, QGN804, QGC020, QGH010, QGH028, QGB070, QGB071, QGH050, QGH051, QGH030, QGH038, QGN033, QGN048, QGC030, QGN050, QGN051. Seiko 1981 volume 1 catalogue Perhaps signaling the diminishing importance of the Grand Quartz range in the overall offer, Grand Quartz was relegated to pages 35 and 36 of the catalogue. The references dropped from the range were as follows – QGB011, QGB041, QGH40, QGH41. Seiko 1981 volume 2 catalogue The references dropped from the range were as follows – QGB040, QGB604, QGC010, QGN020, QGB080. Seiko 1982 volume 1 catalogue Interestingly this catalogue saw QGN804 – whose last appearance was in 1980’s volume 1 catalogue – return to the range. This was the last of the catalogues to feature an introductory hero shot of a Grand Quartz Seiko 1983 volume 1 catalogue (note – there was no 1982 volume 2 catalogue published) The references dropped from the range were as follows – QGB010, QGB038, QGB060. These final five references would remain as the Grand Quartz range until it was retired from the Seiko offer following the 1985 V1 catalogue. For completeness sake, although the remaining catalogues had the exact same offer as that shown above, we will include their scans here. Seiko 1983 volume 2 catalogue Seiko 1984 volume 1 catalogue Seiko 1984 volume 2 catalogue Note that Grand Quartz is no longer deserving of its own page in the catalogue, with the remaining King Quartz squeezed in. Seiko 1984 volume 2 catalogue Seiko 1985 volume 1 catalogue What happened next? We highlighted previously how the 1980 volume 2 catalogue was the last one to feature Grand Quartz near the beginning of the publication, immediately following the Superiors. By the time we get to 1983’s volume 1 catalogue, even the Superiors are usurped to deeper pages – appearing on page 25 – with the Grand Quartz on page 26. The sub-brand establishing itself at the beginning pages of the catalogues was “Dolce”. Clearly back in the mid-1980’s for some reason accuracy no longer became particularly important at Seiko – the calibers powering the Dolce range were only accurate to +/- 15 seconds per month. In fact, almost every single analogue quartz watch in the collection had a movement inside that was running to the same level of accuracy. Quite what was behind this decision to seemingly abandon pretty much every chronometric advance made during the previous decade and a half of quartz development is a mystery to us, Frankly speaking, it’s not just the technology in the analogue quartz watches in the 1985 volume 2 catalogue that leaves us cold – the “design” of the watches is so bland and monotonous that it would sully this article to include images of them. Fortunately, this period in the doldrums of insipid “style” and lackluster chronometric performance was short lived. In 1988, Grand Seiko was reborn. Oddly, there appear to be no biannual Seiko catalogues from that year, and so we have to wait until 1989 volume 1 to see Grand Seiko returned to its rightful place on the first pages. Seiko 1989 volume 1 catalogue (Note – this is actually a scan from the volume 2 catalogue of 1989. Our library copy of the 1989 volume 1 catalogue has a lot of writing on it. The page layout and content of the two pages featuring Grand Seiko are identical in the two 1989 catalogues.) The relaunch of Grand Seiko featured a quartet of watches powered by quartz movements. Utilising the time-only 9581 movement were the SBGS002 in 18K gold, and SBGS001 in stainless steel, with both watches supplied on leather straps. SBGS002 SBGS001 The 9587 movement, with its added date function, was used in SBGS004 and SBGS003. Both watches were presented on bracelets that really do have to be tried on to believe. They are amongst the most comfortable bracelets your author has ever had on his wrist. SBGS004 SBGS003 SBGS004 had an 18K gold bezel and its bracelet was steel and 18K gold, whereas SBGS003 was all steel. Both 9581 and 9587 movements picked up where the 994x series left off, with an accuracy of +/-10 seconds per year. The third digit in a Seiko movement is used to indicate the movement’s relative accuracy within the wider Seiko offer – this goes all the way back to the 1960’s where we see movements such as those in the Grand Seiko 61GS series numbered 6145 (regular), 6155 (Special) and 6185 (VFA) to differentiate their chronometric performance. It is interesting to note that on the re-introduction of Grand Seiko, the 95-series movements are given an “8” accuracy designation – the same as that of the 3883, 4883, and 9983 Superiors of the 1970’s – and not the “4” of the older Grand Quartz. Clearly the Grand Seiko range sat at the top of the wider Seiko offer, so perhaps this use of the ‘8’ accuracy designation in the movement numbers makes sense. But it would be remiss of us not to highlight that the accuracy of Grand Seiko quartz at its rebirth was no better than that of the Seiko Grand Quartz released a decade earlier. Indeed, even today we see that, excepting a very few limited edition releases, the accuracy of the latest 9F85 quartz movements remains at that same +/-10 seconds per year. With (at the last count) over 750 Grand Seiko references released during the “modern” era, it’s easy to lose sight of how the Grand Seiko story was “reborn” over 30 years ago, but the relaunch was very successful, and currently the four watches from that relaunch are still relatively accessible to collectors who recognise the significance of their release. Below is a photograph of those four references laid out next to their catalogue pictures. Grand Seiko, Seiko Grand Quartz, Grand Seiko Quartz At the beginning of this article your author opined that – excepting that brief period between the second half of 1985, and the “relaunch” of the brand in 1988 – Grand Seiko never really went away. Clearly the quartz revolution had a significant impact on mechanical watch making, but as discussed earlier, it took quite a few years for quartz to be able to build up a sufficient head of steam to force Grand Seiko mechanical watches into submission. During these early years, Seiko used the “VFA” label to differentiate the top chronometrically performing quartz models from the rest of the range. But these early 38- and 39-series VFA references were eventually replaced by the same brand that replaced Grand Seiko, and that brand was Seiko Grand Quartz. It is only with a close examination of the various offers presented in the Seiko catalogues over the course of time that we are able to see the “big picture” as to what happened through the 1970’s and into the 1980’s. The graph below shows a count of the number of high-end watches in the Seiko range, by brand – Grand Seiko mechanical, the early references that were just branded “quartz”, then the VFA’s, Superior, and Grand Quartz offers. (Not included are the references running on the regular quartz movements from the 38-series onwards – we are only concerned with the top-of-the-range offer for the purpose of this argument.) The figures graphed are a count of the number of references in the range by half year. For half 1, this is arrived at simply by counting up the number of references appearing in the V1 catalogue. For half 2, it is slightly more complicated as we also have to include watches appearing any supplements to the V2 catalogue, along with those references appearing in the Special Luxury and Credor/Crét D’or catalogues. Again for the sake of clarity – we are only counting the top of the range offer, which is why you see a steady decline in those labeled “Quartz”, as they were rebranded in time to VFA. The key messages to take from the graph are as follows – There is a rapid drop-off in the breadth of the Grand Seiko mechanical offer, that coincides directly with the growth of the quartz VFA range. Grand Seiko mechanical is dropped from the range at the exact same time that Seiko Grand Quartz is introduced. Seiko Grand Quartz, within the space of a year, takes over from quartz VFA, with the same level of accuracy. From these observations, your author’s interpretation of this is clear. Quartz VFA killed off Grand Seiko mechanical, and Seiko Grand Quartz directly took over from both quartz GFA and Grand Seiko mechanical. The fact that the word “Grand” is even in “Seiko Grand Quartz” should be a big enough clue that Grand Seiko never really went away. But additionally, it was clearly a wider strategic rebranding not just for Grand Seiko, but also for King Seiko (as mentioned earlier, exactly the same thing happened), and indeed Lord Marvel (which became “Lord Quartz”). Seiko Grand Quartz, Seiko King Quartz, Seiko Lord Quartz – they are all continuations of the original mechanical brands, updated for the quartz age. In our view, the rebranding in 1975 of Grand Seiko to Seiko Grand Quartz, and then the introduction of Grand Seiko Quartz in 1988 is little different – indeed, arguably less significant – to the rebranding of Grand Seiko in 2017 when “Seiko” was dropped from the dials. Thus, it is out contention that Grand Seiko never actually went away. The Seiko Grand Quartz are Grand Seikos. We of course recognise that this is a fairly contentious proposition to make, but the evidence is presented above, and we would very much welcome wider discussion on the matter. Please do feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below. It has been a pretty monumental task putting this article together – certainly it has taken a lot longer than we originally thought – and we hope that, even if you don’t agree with the overall premise, the detailed content on the history of Seiko Grand Quartz is of interest. A note on copyright Whilst we of course own the copyright on the “live” images included in this article, we don’t own any copyright on the catalogue scans. Fair use of course applies here, and we wouldn’t expect any issues from Seiko for reproducing the catalogues so extensively, but we would respectfully ask that people refrain from “ripping off” the scans shared here and rehosting them elsewhere. It is a huge task to scan the catalogues, edit the scans, and then host them to freely share for the benefit of the wider community. We chose in this instance not to add identifiable watermarks so that people can view the scans clearly. We would be grateful if those who in the past have brazenly swiped content from this site (and indeed others) for their own gain refrain from doing so. Thank you. Gerald Donovan/The Grand Seiko Guy April 2020 Glossary Catalogue and case-back numbers Those familiar with our articles on the Seiko catalogues featuring vintage Grand Seiko mechanical references will be aware that in the past we have always led with the case-back model number (comprised of the movement code and case code), rather than the catalogue number. Historically the reason for this is that we started acquiring the watches before we acquired the catalogues. Indeed, it has only been in very recent years that the old catalogues have been extensively scanned and shared, and so people only really had whatever was marked on the physical watches to identify them by. For the purposes of this article, since the structure and content is based around a full set of catalogues from our library, it made more sense to use the catalogue numbers throughout. However, we do realise that should collectors look to acquire these watches, it will be the case-back model numbers that they will find the watches listed by, so below we present a table that matches catalogue code to case-back model number, along with – for added interest – the catalogues in which each reference made an appearance. The movement number used in particular reference can be identified from the first four digits of the case-back code. Catalogue Code Case-back code Catalogues that the reference appears in HNK624 4843-5000 75V2, 75SLC HNK804 4843-8020 75V2, 75SLC HNK60G 4843-8005 75V2, 75SLC HNK644 4843-8030 75V2, 75SLC, 76CD HNK018 4843-8020 75V2, 75SLC, 76CD HNK604 4843-8000 75V2, 75SLC QNK020 4843-7001 75V2, 76V1, 77V1 QNK021 4843-7000 75V2, 76V1, 77V1 QNK824 4843-8041 76V1, 77V1 QNK040 4843-8040/1 76V1, 77V1 QNK050 4843-8050 76V1, 77V1 QNK030 4843-5010 76V1, 77V1 QNJ604 4842-8050/1 76V1, 77V1 QNJ020 4842-8040/1 76V1, 77V1 QNH800 4840-8040/1 76V1, 77V1 QNH010 4840-8040/1 76V1, 77V1 QNK061 4843-8050 77V1 QNK904 4843-8100 77V2, 78V1 QNK080 4843-8100 77V2, 78V1 QNK864 4843-5100 77V2, 78V1 QNK070 4843-5100 77V2, 78V1, 78V2 QNK884 4843-8110 77V2, 78V1, 78V2 QNK090 4843-8110 77V2, 78V1 QNJ624 4842-5100 77V2, 78V1 QNJ030 4842-8110 77V2, 78V1, 78V2 QNH820 4840-8110 77V2, 78V1, 78V2 QNH030 4840-8110 77V2, 78V1 QGB804 9943-8020 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1, 83V1, 83V2, 84V1, 84V2, 85V1 QGB824 9943-8000 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1, 83V1, 83V2, 84V1, 84V2, 85V1 QGB010 9943-8000 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1 QGB011 9943-8000/A 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2 QGB040 9943-8030 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1 QGB041 9943-8030 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2 QGB020 9943-8010 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1, 83V1, 83V2, 84V1, 84V2, 85V1 QGB038 9943-8010 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1 QGB060 9943-8020 78V2, 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1 QGB604 9943-5010 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1 QGB050 9943-5000 79V1, 79V2, 80V1 QGN804 9940-8010 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 82V1, 83V1, 83V2, 84V1, 84V2, 85V1 QGC020 9942-5000 79V1, 79V2, 80V1 QQC010 9942-8000 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1 QGN010 9940-8000 79V1, 79V2, 80V1, 80V2, 81V1, 81V2, 82V1, 83V1, 83V2, 84V1, 84V2, 85V1 QGH010 9256-5010 79V1, 79V2, 80V1 QGH028 9256-5000 79V1, 79V2, 80V1 QGB070 9943-5020 79V2, 80V1 QGB071 9943-5020 79V2, 80V1 QGH050 9256-5020 79V2, 80V1 QGH051 9256-5020 79V2, 80V1 QGH030 9256-8000 79V2, 80V1 QGH038 9256-8010 79V2, 80V1 QGH040 9256-7000 79V2, 80V1, 80V2 QGH041 9256-7000 79V2, 80V1, 80V2 QGN033 9940-7010 80V1 QGN048 9940-7010 80V1 QGN020 9940-7000 80V1, 80V2, 81V1 QGB080 9943-7000 80V1, 80V2, 81V1 QGC030 9942-7000 80V1 QGN050 9940-7020 80V1 QGN051 9940-7020 80V1 And finally… As a bonus for making it all the way to the end of the article, here’s a matrix of scans including all 59 Seiko Grand Quartz for you to download (for personal use only!). The references are pictured in the order in which they made their first catalogue appearance.

Deprived of customers, UK farmers throw away milk

Advertising Read more London (AFP) Deprived of customers such as supermarkets, restaurants and schools due to the coronavirus outbreak and resulting lockdown, British farmers are throwing away thousands of litres of milk. Coffee shops and office blocks, also shut because of COVID-19, are no longer receiving their early morning deliveries, although there has been a hike in the amount of milk being dropped off at people's homes in time for breakfast, according to the publication FarmingUK. Dairy farmer Robert Mallett, based in Wiltshire, western England, recently tweeted about dumping "17,000 litres down the drain", while Winterdale Cheesemakers, based in the southeast of the country, showed a video of discarded milk flowing rapidly from a pipe. "Rough times for artisan cheesemakers... but now the devastation continues -- our milk was not collected today and sadly ends up down the drain and on top of that we have still not been paid for February’s milk!!," added Winterdale. And going forward, producers can expect to be paid less. Freshways, one of the largest milk wholesalers in Britain, is already slashing the prices it is prepared to offer to farmers. Dairy analysts Ian Potter Associates said "there is suddenly oceans of surplus milk desperately trying to find a home". "The milk market has all changed very quickly," it added in a recent client note. "The panic buying of dairy products with retailers restricting milk purchases has reversed as demand plummeted." While "stockpiling has stopped and consumers freezers are full of milk and dairy products", it noted also that "restaurants, pubs, hospitality businesses have been rushing to offload unwanted stock and cancelling orders". - Government help? - The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers on Tuesday called on the government "to help fund a short-term financial support scheme for dairy farmers whose businesses have been severely affected as a result of coronavirus and to avert a larger crisis in the industry". About 300 dairy farmers, together producing around one million litres of milk daily, could be eligible for reimbursement, the Association said. Tom Tugendhat, an MP for the ruling Conservative party, has described the treatment of UK farmers generally as "appalling", putting pressure on the government to act. The National Farmers Union meanwhile on Tuesday voiced concern about there being a lack of workers for the next harvests. "Growers that rely on seasonal workers to grow, pick and pack our fresh fruit, veg and flowers are extremely concerned about the impact coronavirus restrictions may have on their ability to recruit this critical workforce this season," said NFU Vice President Tom Bradshaw. It is a concern repeated abroad, with asparagus producers in France and strawberry farmers in Spain recently speaking out. © 2020 AFP

I’m still comforted by Fire Emblem: Three Houses, 240 hours in

It’s embarrassing how much I’ve played Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I got the game for Christmas, started it on the second day of the new decade, and by early April have logged, according to the in-game counter, over 240 hours of play time. “Wow,” my chiropractor said when I told him I’d hit the 40-hour mark, seven days in. “That’s like a full workweek!” I had not thought of it that way, although the fact that I was telling my chiropractor about the game at all should have been a sign I was in deep. I’m turning 30 soon. I’m not scared about it, or anxious; I reserve those feelings for … ... everything else going on in the world at the moment. I’ve identified as 30 for the past few years, so really this is just making it legal. I feel lucky to be getting to this age at all — several people I loved did not — and 30 is not old, and old is not bad. Thirty is, if anything, a waypoint, a firm-ish line I can use to demarcate a portion of my life and take some semblance of stock. I’m largely happy: I like my job and my city, love my friends and boyfriend, and have not had to contend yet with any major family tragedy. I sing in a choir; I knit sweaters and socks; I make dinner for myself most nights. I count my steps and I take a light antidepressant. The rhythm of things suits me, finally, after a lot of stops and starts and uncertainties. I do not expect it will feel this good forever, so I am trying to be in it, to tread the water of it, while I can. Still, the big questions — kids, marriage, money, parents, profession, place — loom just outside the frame, because with each year it becomes clearer that this life of mine is not practice, not groundwork for something bigger and later, but real, for keeps, permanent. Three Houses is a game about choices. You play as a young mercenary who becomes a professor at a monastery-slash-officers’-academy (“horny magic war school,” is how I describe it when prompted), training a group of students in their late teens and early 20s to become paladins and mages and swordmasters. Even if you do not play JRPGs, the rhythms are likely familiar: You and your students battle monsters and enemies, gain levels and gold, and upgrade weapons. The story, which ultimately becomes about your attempts to win a multipronged transcontinental land war, feels in moments like Harry Potter fucked Game of Thrones and gave birth to Pokémon. It’s a little cheesy, a little predictable, a little repetitive. It’s incredibly, irrevocably satisfying. The first choice you make is in the game’s title: which of the three academic houses you will lead. At first, I’d thought that was largely a cosmetic choice, that the story would unfold similarly no matter who you picked. It became obvious almost right away that this was not the case. While the mechanics and story beats are similar (which I know firsthand because as soon as I finished my first run, I immediately went back and played all of the others), it’s an entirely different game from route to route. The students in the houses you don’t choose become, over time, your enemies; although at first you might have enjoyed meals with them in the dining hall or fought beside them on missions, by the end of the game you’ll likely have stood opposite one another on a battlefield. You might even have killed them yourself. This is made acutely painful because of how richly drawn the characters are. Each house contains eight students, and every one of them has a complicated, compelling backstory that gradually unfolds over the course of the game. You deepen your own relationships through training and teatime, and they get to know each other as well. The real currency of the game, to my mind, comes in the form of “supports,” or little cutscenes that take place between characters as they spend more time together. Sometimes they fight, sometimes they flirt, sometimes they confess to the other that their dads were mortal enemies. I like to hoard these supports until I’ve collected half a dozen or so and then watch them all at once, usually right before bed or on the elliptical. That’s the other, subtler set of choices I’ve found myself making over the course of my hundred-odd hours: how best to care for these characters. You are responsible for choosing their paths, for deciding whether to train them in healing magic or battle-ax-wielding (or both!), and have a fairly strong hand in whom they wind up spending their lives with as well. As a result, you become intensely acquainted with their quirks and proclivities. One character tells you he knows he’s destined to be a knight but wishes he could be a painter instead; another wants to spend every day alone in her room, which you gradually realize is because of horrific abuse by her father before she finally left home. Another simply prefers to nap all the time. It would be hard to overstate how much I think about these people who don’t exist, how many soft spots I’ve developed for two dozen fictional students living in the year 1181. Whenever I play, which is practically every day now, I feel made of soft spots. In my daily life, I spend a lot of time optimizing for my own happiness. Keep the step count high and the credit card bill low; maintain the tidiness of the inbox and the bedside table. Always calibrating, always checking in to see what my levels are, always aware of the tick-tick-tick just below the surface. Maybe this sounds like a prison, but to me it’s a comfort. There have been times I’ve veered too far — calorie counting is not something I can do without consequences — and yet most of the time my running tallies are what keep me feeling grounded. When my mind starts its too-familiar wobble, I can look at the framework of my life as proof that it has all to this point been largely OK, that it will likely past this point be OK, and then I take another 1,000 steps or read another third of a book. I add to my bottom line and I get back to myself again. When I first started to interrogate my love of video games, which I’ve had since I can remember having moods, I thought it was simply about quantification, about control. All you had to do was push the right buttons, make the right plan, and you’d succeed. You could save your grandfather’s failing farm; you could find your way back to the kidnapped princess; you could amass more Simoleons than could be spent in five generations. I still love the comforting rhythm of my favorite games, the partial brain required to operate them, the prepackaged feeling of accomplishment that comes with each increasing level. Lately, though, I’ve felt that the real fantasy is the replay. I’ve replayed virtually every game I’ve ever loved, some many times. I like the familiar contours, the sense of recognition, even the lulling feeling that comes with having successfully completed a task before, and knowing I can do so again. Three Houses is one of the first narrative games I’ve been drawn to, though, where replaying is built into its DNA — you can’t possibly see everything the game has to offer, or even most of it, unless you go back and start again on a different path. Similarly, a central game mechanic is something called the Divine Pulse — when you are in battle, you have a handful of opportunities to rewind time, rescuing characters who have fallen or backtracking to make a strategy play out more cleanly. This is most relevant to players who undertake the game in Classic Mode, otherwise known as “permadeath,” where characters who die stay dead for the rest of the game; I’m a big old baby and can’t stomach the thought of that, so I play on Casual Mode, even though there is nothing particularly casual about arming a group of teenagers so they can fight someone called the “Death Knight.” Divine Pulse makes it so that you can retrace your steps; you get to see what’s coming and go back to better prepare. I sometimes think about what it would be like to use it in my own life — to unsend the frustrated email, to unspill the drunk secret. What would it be like to redo the whole thing, to get to see how it feels to choose one path and then go back and pick the others? Who would I be if I got to see it all from where I sit right now? Of course, I can’t, and I wouldn’t want to. Even the way turning back time works in the game doesn’t leave you with a clean slate. If anything, it papers over the consequences of your actions. I still remember with cold-water clarity exactly what a favorite character of mine screamed as she bled out on a battlefield, killed unavoidably by one of my soldiers. I replayed the entire battle to evade her, but it’s hard to forget. And every time I start a new playthrough, knowing that choosing one house means abandoning the other two, it’s hard to forget what it was like to have cared so deeply for those sets of kids, to feel as though their causes, diametrically opposed though they may be, were the just ones. This is a game about growing up, about taking care. About laying out a path and knowing you can’t unchoose it, even if you can eventually double back. In its own way that’s a comfort too: It’s closer to how things really are. In February, an update to Three Houses was released — a side quest involving a fourth house, composed of a handful of students secretly living underneath the school. It’s corny and kind of pandering; it feels far closer to fanfiction than to the writing of the main game. Still, I love the added dimension it brings to a world I’ve practically memorized. It’s at least good for another 40 or so hours as I play through the main story once or twice more, meeting new characters and enjoying the familiar grooves of this place I’m not ready to leave yet (especially when the rest of the world is currently less than hospitable). In my heavily organized, quantified adult life, there probably shouldn’t be so much time to devote to an escapist fantasy, and yet somehow I’ve managed to carve it out from the rest of the regimen. Now, of course, there’s more of that time than ever. That, above all, is what I’ve loved best about these past 12 or 13 weeks — my gameplay is just mine, only of itself, resulting in nothing. It allows me to stay comfortably in one place while the rest of time does its usual passing around me. It’s so fun; it’s so fun to have fun. It’s such a relief to love something like this, to look forward to it when I’m not playing, to have a container to pour myself into, at least for now.

Ventilators for coronavirus patients are in short supply. How scientists might pivot

At hospitals facing a flood of people infected with the new coronavirus and a shortage of equipment to treat them, an unspoken question looms over every medical interaction: Will this COVID-19 patient need a ventilator to survive? Somewhere between 10% and 25% of patients sick with COVID-19 eventually require assistance to breathe. Roughly 5% of patients will develop acute respiratory distress syndrome, at which point only a mechanical ventilator can drive oxygen into their lungs and push fluid out. Recognizing the difference between those whose survival depends on access to a ventilator and those who can recover with less aggressive breathing assistance has become a vital skill for doctors. The United States has roughly 173,000 ventilators scattered across the country, according to the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University. It may sound like a lot, but there could be 31 times as many patients who need one, experts from Harvard Medical School predict. Advertisement In places such as New York and Detroit, where the number of very ill patients is projected to peak in the next two weeks, ventilator shortages have already been reported. Unless thousands more machines arrive, doctors there will face painful decisions about which patients to save and which to let die. So while hospitals and health officials work to increase the supply, scientists are testing ways to reduce the demand by diverting COVID-19 patients from the path that would typically end with a ventilator. Newsletter Get our free Coronavirus Today newsletter Sign up for the latest news, best stories and what they mean for you, plus answers to your questions. Enter Email Address Sign Me Up You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Their work, if successful, would not only free up machines for the sickest of patients. Patients able to avert the need for mechanical ventilation would avoid the risks that come with being anesthetized and intubated, including lung damage and death. Advertisement “All around the country, we’re highly concerned about ventilator shortages, so we’re looking for every possible way to provide respiratory support to patients,” said Dr. Mark Hepokoski, a UC San Diego critical care specialist. Recognizing which patients will recover with less aggressive treatments is not easy with a wholly new disease, but it’s essential, he added. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, is the endgame for the unluckiest COVID-19 patients. By that point, the virus has begun to destroy the tiny compartments in the lungs where blood normally collects oxygen. Roaring inflammation, a response to infection, further deteriorates the lung’s ability to draw in air. Without help, these patients could drown. More than a dozen medications that were developed to treat other diseases are now being tested on COVID-19 patients. Ideally, several of them would allow patients with mild to moderate symptoms recover before their illnesses reach the severe or critical stage. Advertisement But researchers are not stopping there. They are also using artificial intelligence to identify patients who are most likely to develop ARDS and need the gold standard treatment to survive. They’re devising ways to provide breathing assistance with techniques short of mechanical ventilation. If the ventilator shortage becomes desperate, as it has already in some New York City hospitals, doctors will likely try some of these alternatives to rescue dying patients. COVID-19 was bound to be a challenge because it’s a new disease. To make matters worse, its symptoms and progression vary substantially among patients. That means doctors have no reliable intuitions about a patient’s prognosis. Advertisement Patients who are older, male and have underlying conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or asthma tend to have worse outcomes. But there are exceptions to that pattern. As they assess incoming COVID-19 patients, doctors need better ways to predict the courses their charges will likely take. A team of researchers in China and at New York University turned to machine learning to see whether useful clues could be found through a massive scouring of symptoms, blood test results and patient characteristics. Aided by artificial intelligence techniques, the researchers performed an exhaustive scrub of data from 53 patients who were treated in a hospital in Wenzhou, China. Their work identified the three top signs of a patient likely to develop critical illness, as well as their order of importance. The resulting list amounts to a step-by-step “decision tree” to help doctors triage patients early and set aside scarce ventilators for the right ones. Advertisement At the top of the list: a slightly elevated level of the liver enzyme alanine aminotransferase, or ALT. It is one of 20 measures of metabolic and organ function, blood oxygenation and inflammation that’s routinely tested in all hospitalized patients. In those who would go on to develop ARDS, ALT levels were so slightly above normal that “it would not necessarily set off alarm bells,” said Dr. Megan Coffee of NYU, who has been working on the research while treating COVID-19 patients. But in winnowing out patients most likely to need a respirator, it offers a powerful first clue. Once that liver enzyme reading has tripped the alarm, a patient’s report of overall achiness appears to hold important information. After that, there’s a high likelihood of trouble ahead if sign No. 3 is present — an elevated hemoglobin level that looks like the opposite of anemia. A patient’s male gender, higher temperature and abnormal sodium levels were measures 4, 5 and 6 on the list of predictors. Advertisement Other common signposts weren’t so valuable, the analysis found. Physicians will routinely look to measures like a patient’s age, lymphocyte count and white blood cell count to gauge how sick he or she may be. But those all fell near the bottom of the list of predictive measures. Coffee said her work in the West African Ebola outbreak led her to expect a patient’s viral load would be revealing. But the team’s AI methods suggest that in COVID-19 patients, it’s not. Likewise, whether a patient arrived at the hospital with breathing difficulties offered no help at all in identifying those who would get sickest. That symptom was just too common among patients across the board, Coffee said. Advertisement Coffee and her colleague Anasse Bari of NYU’s Courant Institute plan to refine their prediction tool by adding in the disease histories of more than 14,000 COVID-19 patients that have been admitted to New York City hospitals. Bari hopes a reliable decision tree will help guide healthcare workers in countries such as his native Morocco, where hospitals are expected to be overwhelmed in the pandemic. Another approach is to find existing medical equipment that can function like a ventilator in certain circumstances. A leading contender is the bilevel positive airway pressure device that is ordinarily used to help patients with breathing problems that have not progressed to the critical stage. BiPap machines could be used to wean some improving patients from the invasive mechanical ventilators, freeing them up for incoming patients, said Dr. Atul Malhotra, a lung specialist at UC San Diego. Already used widely in New York City, where COVID-19 patients are outstripping ventilators, BiPap machines deliver oxygen under pressure through a mask. Patients can readily pull them off to cough or because they are uncomfortable, so they pose extra infection risks to healthcare workers. Advertisement There’s also the machines that pump anesthesia into patients during surgical procedures. With minor modification, they could provide mechanical ventilation for COVID-19 patients who have developed respiratory distress. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration and the American Society of Anesthesiologists have issued step-by-step instructions for converting the machines for use with COVID-19 patients. Those machines have largely been freed up by the shutdown of elective surgeries. The ASA estimates that 70,000 anesthesia machines are available in hospitals and ambulatory care centers across the country. Regular ventilators could also be modified so they can be shared by more than one patient. Advertisement “Such a strategy should only be considered as an absolute last resort,” according to guidance from federal health officials. In a “crisis-care, life-or-death situation,” neither the FDA nor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would bar the practice. But patients sharing a single ventilator might infect each other with bacteria and viruses, and doctors would not be able to carefully calibrate the pressure at which oxygen is delivered. For some patients, lung damage could result from oxygen delivered under too much pressure; others who are forced to share could die from getting too little. And if one patient on a shared ventilator should go into cardiac arrest, the ventilation of any other patients sharing the device would have to be stopped so the heart attack victim’s breathing tube could be removed and resuscitation efforts begun. Regulators might bring new machines online as well. One of them is HemoLung, which functions like a dialysis machine for the lungs by removing carbon dioxide from blood. That could spare some patients with ARDS the need for mechanical ventilation, or at least delay that need. Advertisement HemoLung has been approved since 2013 in Europe, where it’s used for patients with emphysema and ARDS. It’s currently in clinical trials, not for COVID-19 patients but for patients with ARDS caused by other disorders, at 34 sites in the United States, and its inventor, University of Pittsburgh bioengineer William Federspiel, has asked the FDA to issue an “emergency use authorization” that would make it available to COVID-19 patients. Each of the 34 U.S. clinical trial sites has two HemoLung consoles, and they could be used with an FDA waiver. If the device shows promise, he added, the company may attract enough capital to ramp up production before a vaccine can be developed. There’s also a helmet that looks like an overturned fishbowl. Sealed by a rubber collar and clamped to a patient’s shoulders by a pair of under-arm straps, helmet-based ventilation could delay — if not eliminate — the need for a standard ventilator. In a trial at the University of Chicago, 30% of patients who got their oxygen through the helmet were able to avoid intubation altogether. Advertisement The helmet-based ventilation has been widely used on COVID patients in Italy, France and Spain, said Dr. John P. Kress of the University of Chicago, a critical care specialist who has championed the use of helmets, which can be attached to standard “medical air” outlets behind virtually all hospital beds. “But the equipment just never took off here like it did in Europe,” he said. Many large medical centers have a few helmets tucked away in their respiratory department’s store room, Kress added. If they perform well in the ongoing trials, they may see the light of day.

How Loren Landow, the team's head strength coach, plans to keep the Broncos ready for the season from afar

Though players on the Broncos' roster have varying amounts of exercise equipment, Landow ensured the team would be as prepared as possible. When it became apparent that the NFL offseason program would likely be delayed, Landow worked with vendors to make exercise equipment available to members of the roster if requested. The setup varies by player depending on if they're in a house or apartment, but dumbbells and an adjustable bench press were among the five or six items in which some players chose to invest. Landow said players were able to add squat racks and free weights to develop "as extensive a weight room as they want." If and when Landow is allowed to initiate sessions with the players — the NFL and NFLPA are still working through standards for a virtual offseason program — he hopes to meet with each position group via video conference. That could be particularly important following the 2020 NFL Draft, when Landow looks to help rookies adjust to NFL standards and techniques. "One of the biggest things we want to do if needed, is we want to do a positional group Zoom call, so I can at least explain to everybody the technique and the different things that I'm looking for and that I want them to pay attention to in these exercises," Landow said. "Our players are really well-versed in the weight room. We have a great work ethic on our team, so I'm not concerned with anybody skipping reps. Our technique should be pretty good with most of our players. It is with those incoming young guys who we have really haven't seen them move. That will be where we have to have an extra area of consideration or caution while providing their programs." Though the workouts are generally standardized, Drew Lock and Von Miller won't be running the same amount or completing the same lifts. During the offseason program, the Broncos work out in three groups: the "bigs," "middles" and "skills." The differentiation allows offensive and defensive linemen to focus on position-specific workouts, while linebackers and tight ends and receivers and defensive backs do the same in their respective groups. "When it comes to the lifting, there are certain things that Brandon McManus has to do and Drew Lock has to do that's different than a Von Miller," Landow said. "We're making sure that we're checking all those boxes of getting the specificity to each individual player in the take-home program as well." All players, though, will have some degree of sprint work to ensure they're ready to return to the facility — regardless of whether that's in minicamp or training camp. Consistent training in the offseason, Landow said, can help prevent injuries when the players do return to the field. "The worst thing you can do right now is just be lifting and not going out and doing any of your movement, any of your corrective exercises, any of your pure sprint work," Landow said. "That's so foundational to the sport. The sport is a lot of collision, but it's a lot of high doses of acceleration and deceleration. It's going to be imperative that our players get out and work on those skills. Getting out and working out on their conditioning … will be a big part of that as well." Landow emphasized that the Broncos should practice proper social distancing during such conditioning as well as adhering to all local guidelines. As the Broncos lift and condition, their diet will remain an important part of the equation. Director of Team Nutrition Bryan Snyder has also prepared individualized plans for players to fulfill pre-workout and post-workout needs, if requested. "He builds really great plans for these guys," Landow said. "We've got a strong relationship between the athletic training staff, the nutrition staff and the strength staff. We're on the same page. I'm very, very hopeful and very excited to see how we work as a team during this time." Landow does have some experience navigating an unfamiliar situation and preparing athletes for a moving target of a return date. Before joining the Broncos in 2018, he ran Landow Performance, which works with athletes from a variety of sports. In 2011, as the NFL dealt with a lockout, Landow guided nearly 60 NFL athletes to ensure they were ready for an eventual season and for their respective conditioning tests they would take upon returning to their clubs. That offseason could pay dividends as Landow and his team adapt their plan depending on the latest updates on the COVID-19 crisis. "Even though I had my plan, I had to adjust each week as we were hearing from the Players Association what may or may not be happening with the lockout," Landow said. "I have some experience with this kind of fluid model or this target where we don't really know what we're trying to go for. My goal is to make sure the players are moving in the same direction if they came to us on April 20. I'm going to make sure everything we expected of them in Phase I is being implemented and sent to them. Same thing for Phase II, same thing for Phase III. "All we'll do is readjust and recalibrate as we know more." For Broncos fans looking to stay in shape during unprecedented times, Landow has also recorded a series of home workout videos. He was recently mentioned on NPR's Weekend Edition, and his videos can be found here. Though you should be careful not to overexert yourself, Landow spoke of the benefits of staying active during this time: "During this time when everybody's in quarantine-type orders and being in in-home scenarios, I think the biggest thing is staying active," Landow said. "I think people are putting out a lot of good information on social media, but I think it's also very important that you don't over-do it right now. The goal of working out is obviously to bolster your immunity, but if the workouts become too challenging, you can actually suppress your immunity. So I think it's important that you do stay active, but you watch that you don't overdo it. ... People just need to be smart. Stay active, but stay within what your capabilities and what your abilities are in your own fitness.

Urban Dictionary: Author squidfaic

Top Definition an abbreviation for a type of racial pairing. likely first came up as a hashtag on porn websites, and due to such sites made the way for the abbreviation to be more recognized outside such areas. may be a fetish, hashtag, or just a general description of a couple. often shamed by those who are against miscegenation, and other bigots. their main issue seems to be the WM portion of the pairing. comparing the AF portion to having stockholm syndrome, and believing it to spit in the face of AMAF racially pure pairings. this attitude often comes from the west, although the east can be just as discriminatory. this discrimination of the westerners is most often found among the older xenophobic generations. while the wests discrimination appears to have its roots in a younger generation, it doesn't appear to be xenophobic, but more of a strange projection of their own feelings onto the couple. #1: i searched WMAF on xhamster, but couldn't find the actress i was really wanting. #2: my friend was in a WMAF relationship, and his girlfriend cried when she saw what people thought of them online. by squidfaic February 19, 2020

Joseph Parker is Open To Musical Collaboration With Tyson Fury

According to former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker, he's open to a musical collaboration with Tyson Fury, who has the WBC world title. Parker's career is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the boxer has showed he has plenty of strings to his bow during the ongoing lockdown. The New Zealander has been part of a few uplifting videos while in quarantine. In one video, Parker was strutting his stuff while lip-syncing to The Foundations' popular son Build Me up Buttercup, while demonstrating some skills with a guitar and on the piano. In that particular video, he was assisted by Fury, Hall of Fame ring announcer Michael Buffer, and others. Parker is not ruling out the scenario of providing the instrumentals if Fury breaks into another post-fight song. "Maybe for one of his [Fury] fights I could play an instrument and he could sing after the fight, that might be a bit of fun. I love to dance, I play music around the house and dance and sing. Just as with boxing, you have to have good rhythm when you are dancing. Maybe after my boxing career I can do something with dancing, who knows," Parker told Stats Perform. "I work with Kerry Russell, who does the videography and editing, he has some great ideas. At the start of isolation, it was something new and strange and a lot of people were down about what was happening. We wanted to put smiles on faces and give people something to laugh at. "The goal was to make people smile, we achieved that and it also makes us smile, it makes us happy that people are able to brighten up their day. At the moment we are not working on anything. Once we get ideas into our heads, we'll give it a go. People are expecting big things now with the videos, funny or feel good. At the moment nothing, but hopefully something comes into mind soon. In times like this, I feel if we post something it should be quality over quantity. Something that uplifts, or something to brighten your day and take your mind away from what is happening."

RA Podcast: RA.723 Paramida

Share Blissful jams from Panorama Bar's newest resident. In an interview two years ago, Paramida quoted fellow DJ Nick The Record: "It takes balls to play cheesy music." And while you wouldn't call what she plays "cheesy" per se, the Berlin jockey has an unabashed taste for the ecstatic, uplifting and old-school. She prefers dance music that foregrounds catchy vocals, vamping pianos and hooky synth leads, seeking out blissed-out dance music from the early '90s through to 2020. She used to be a quintessential DJ's DJ, but she's broken out onto the wider dance music circuit in recent years—even Timothée Chalamet Instagrammed himself listening to one of her Rinse FM sessions last month. And she holds residencies at renowned clubs like Robert-Johnson in Frankfurt and Panorama Bar in Berlin, where she's become known for closing out the joint. Paramida's RA Podcast is a snapshot of the DJing that has enchanted so many. It starts off gradually with precise but gentle mixing, the kind of transitions you barely even notice. It infuses trance with a Balearic sensibility, more about slow build-ups than big breakdowns, encompassing ambient hardcore from The Irresistible Force, soulful '90s techno from Glorious Springtime and a centrepiece track, "Oolong Trance," from Alex Kassian, due to be released on her label Love On The Rocks. She's already released records from Massimiliano Pagliara, Fantastic Man, Violet and more, with an ethos defined not by genre but by vibe: spaced-out, breezy and often euphoric. What have you been up to recently? I have recently joined Ostgut Booking, which I am really excited about. But apart from that, I've been self-quarantined for the past few weeks for obvious reasons. How and where was the mix recorded? In Ableton at home. Can you tell us about the idea behind the mix? The idea was to give you a glimpse of what I could possibly play in a DJ set. I also included some upcoming stuff on Love On The Rocks, such as my dear friend Alex Kassian's "Oolong Trance," which I'm really excited about. For readers who may not already be familiar with you, tell us about yourself. What's your musical journey been like up to this point? I started out working at a record store in Berlin, ran a couple of parties and held some residencies. Then I started my label Love On The Rocks. After a couple of years it was time for me to move away from Berlin, because I had too many social obligations and I wanted to focus on myself. Now I hold residencies at Robert Johnson, Rinse FM and Panorama Bar as well. You recently became Panorama Bar's new resident DJ. Has that changed your DJing at all? I had a good relationship with them for a few years now. Being a resident just means that I have tons of sets to prepare and discover avenues of musical territories that I haven’t yet. But it also means I have a great platform to express what I want musically. And it feels great that an institution like Berghain bet their cards on me. I have a lot to live up to. What are you up to next? Staying at home, working on some mixes and my radio show on Rinse FM. Plus, I have been working on a track with someone else that is coming out on Ostgut Ton, which I am really psyched about. And hopefully by the summer I will be able to travel and play gigs again.

How Peter Navarro went from an anti-China 'gadfly' to trusted Trump coronavirus adviser

More than two months later, Navarro finds himself with a prominent role helping Trump speed the delivery of critical medical supplies and an influential perch at his side to tout an unproven treatment for the disease, picking a fight with the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci . This time, Trump is on the same page as Navarro, ardently championing the drug, hydroxychloroquine, before clinical trials can prove or disprove its merits for treating coronavirus. Navarro is just one player in the whole-of-government response to the coronavirus pandemic, but his ascent is emblematic of Trump's constantly shifting response to the crisis and the extent to which Trump is embracing a wide array of voices -- and the infighting that inevitably ensues -- as he lurches from one view of this pandemic to the next. Internal divisions, competing interests and presidential indecision have all been hallmarks of Trump's West Wing culture since its beginning, but never have they carried such life-or-death consequences. Navarro, a prominent China hawk whose protectionist views and abrasive demeanor have earned him a full slate of enemies, now finds himself more empowered than at any time in his three-year White House tenure. While he still remains on the fringes of the President's economic team, the caustic trade adviser faces fewer roadblocks to influencing policy discussions and more top officials willing to give him a seat at the table. And with the stroke of Trump's pen, he has been empowered with legal authority as the Defense Production Act coordinator. "Two or three years ago he was totally excluded, totally kept in a box," one administration official said, comparing him to a "gadfly." "Now, he's in the Oval all the time, he's on the podium at press briefings." When Navarro fired off his internal flare in late January, other White House officials dismissed his memo -- which focused exclusively on banning travel from China as a remedy -- as the latest anti-China musings of a man who considers almost every issue through that ideological lens. And while his worst-case scenario warning may now appear prescient -- trillions of dollars in economic losses and millions of Americans infected -- the trade adviser relied on only a few data points and no public health expertise to make his case. Less than a month later, as Trump continued to downplay the threat, Navarro warned that the risk of a pandemic was rising and urged the White House's coronavirus task force to secure billions in supplemental spending, according to two sources familiar with the second memo, one of whom provided a copy to CNN. Trump said Tuesday that he didn't see Navarro's coronavirus warning memos until a "day or two" ago but that he hadn't sought them out. Asked why he initially downplayed the coronavirus even as his adviser was warning of potential devastation, Trump said during his daily coronavirus briefing that he wasn't interested in causing panic. "I'm not going to go out and start screaming, this could happen," Trump said. "I'm a cheerleader for this country. I don't want to create havoc and shock." Asked about the memos on Tuesday, another Trump economic adviser, National Economic Council chairman Larry Kudlow, said he hadn't read them. "Look, there are a lot of voices in the administration, some more urgent than others," he said. Not the only voice Navarro was not the only White House official firing off early warnings and many public health experts were voicing concerns at the time of both memos. But the memos are the latest piece of evidence that undercuts Trump's insistence at the time that the administration had the situation under control and his more recent claims that the pandemic the US now faces was "unforeseen." That in and of itself presents a risk for Navarro's status with Trump, a voracious TV news consumer who bridles at being contradicted or undermined by his aides. While Trump's increasingly sober response (in fits and starts) was largely driven by a combination of stock market nosedives, models predicting grim death tolls and political polling, Trump's views on hydroxychloroquine have been shaped by a kitchen cabinet of friends and advisers -- many of them devoid of any medical expertise -- who have touted the drug's benefits. Despite the public and private words of caution from Fauci, the top infectious disease expert, Trump continues to promote hydroxychloroquine as treatment for coronavirus, buoyed by the views of television personalities such as Dr. Mehmet Oz and of outside advisers such as his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to people familiar with the matter. And despite lacking a medical background , Navarro has also become a forceful advocate for the treatment, pushing the drug in public and behind the scenes -- including during a heated disagreement in the Situation Room over the weekend in which Navarro feuded with Fauci, accusing him of not having supported the initial China travel restrictions even though Fauci has since publicly credited the decision as a helpful step. Asked Monday on CNN what qualifies him to weigh in on the medicine and challenge Fauci, Navarro -- who has a Ph.D. in economics -- noted that he is a "social scientist" who understands "how to read statistical studies, whether it's the medicine, the law, economics or whatever." While the senior medical scientists brought into the White House push for decisions such as extending social distancing guidelines during spirited Situation Room meetings, Trump's political and economic advisers continue to wield their own influence in smaller Oval Office huddles, where ideas sometimes form quickly without the knowledge of the larger team. Some officials said the loose organization has allowed for quicker decision-making and action, including through a parallel effort headed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to leverage the private sector to procure more supplies. Broadening orbit But other ideas, such as a potential mandatory quarantine for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that Trump floated last weekend, seem to pop up at random without the input of the task force. Trump raised the idea after speaking with Florida's governor but was warned against the move by the medical professionals and eventually backed down. With wide swaths of the White House workforce operating remotely and the number of outside visitors limited, Trump has accelerated his phone calls with an extended orbit of advisers and friends, not all of which are tracked by his aides. Trump has grasped at small glimmers of hope in an otherwise dire worldwide crisis, seeking to offer optimism even when the prognosis is unclear at best. In his daily briefings, which have essentially replaced political rallies or engagements with reporters on the South Lawn, Trump has offered confusing public messaging that often upends what his task force has planned or what his officials have agreed upon behind the scenes. People familiar with the matter said it reflects the constant set of official and unofficial inputs, where Trump can chose what sounds best at any given moment. During a briefing Sunday, Trump resisted when a reporter asked Fauci to offer his opinion on the drug after Trump again recommended its use. "You know how many times he's answered that question? Maybe 15 times," Trump said, refusing to allow Fauci to answer the question. The moment served only to highlight the gap between the two men -- one a top doctor, the other a layman -- on the science behind the drug's effectiveness. Fauci has made his views known that hydroxychloroquine remains unproven to treat coronavirus, a public rebuttal of Trump that has caused some tension between the men. As the White House once again begins to take on the Wild West feel of the early months of Trump's presidency, former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows has begun to settle into his role as chief of staff. Meadows, who officially arrived in the job last week, has so far not sought to cut down on the flow of information to the President, a tactic adopted by Trump's second chief of staff John Kelly but abandoned by his third, Mick Mulvaney. And he's not resisted Trump's desire to act as the official front-man for the federal response. Nor has he sought to challenge the first-among-equals status of Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, the President's daughter. Meadows was warned by multiple figures in Trump's orbit that Kushner and Ivanka Trump were a force to be reckoned with for any senior official in the White House, a former senior White House official said. Several congressional and White House sources told CNN that Meadows and Kushner get along well. A White House official said Meadows plans to strike a balance between Kelly -- who closely guarded Trump's schedule and the flow of information to him -- and Mulvaney, who embraced the chaos and "Let Trump be Trump" mantra. Unlike previous chiefs of staff in the Trump White House, administration officials said Meadows has not sought to block Navarro's access to Trump or his participation in key meetings. Kelly, meanwhile, worked with other officials to block Navarro from influencing trade discussions and demanded that Navarro copy him on all of his outgoing emails. Kushner, arguably the most influential West Wing aide, has also embraced Navarro in his role leading medical supply chain efforts, according to three officials. Kushner has deployed Navarro as the "bad cop" in the sometimes contentious efforts to get medical supply companies to ramp up their production and supply of critical equipment. senior administration official compared Navarro to a "missile," saying "like a missile, you just gotta make sure the missile is well-guided." He has also found an ally in national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who shares some of Navarro's mistrust of China and who "encourages Peter to play a larger role," according to an administration official -- a sharp contrast from how previous national security advisers treated Navarro. "He finally has a constellation of people who are not just not openly hostile to him, but are friendly to him," the official said.

A Portion of The Eternal

Olivia (Liv) A seventeen year old, dark haired girl blessed or perhaps cursed with the soul of a poet. Pale skinned and slight of frame she is fragile without being frail, innocent but not naive, vulnerable but not a victim. She is beautiful even in her mourning and unstoppable in her belief that love truly never dies. Brandon A young man at the beginning of adulthood that is tragically robbed of the opportunity to enter it when he mysteriously dies. His voice however carries on, heard by those haunted by him and haunted for him. Christian Golden haired child of privilege, star high school quarterback and possessor of a deceptive smile capable of hiding monstrous intentions. Once you "drift" into his view, your life will forever change. Gabriel Dark, mysterious, unblinking... the soul of someone much older possesses him, the soul of someone troubled, restless, though he remains calm in the face of the chaos of youth. Jai Black, bright but troubled. He has the spirit that wants to fly but is too afraid, chained by his own insecurities of who he really is, where he comes from and what his worth is to anyone. Murdoc Christian's right hand though nothing he does is right or for the right reasons. Russel Even less his own self than Murdoc. It is not that Russel has no conscience it is that he has never been told he should pay attention to it.

Earl G. Graves Sr., founder of Black Enterprise, dies

(CNN) Earl G. Graves, Sr., founder of Black Enterprise -- the media company focused on black entrepreneurship and black businesses -- died Monday at the age of 85. Graves "passed away quietly after a long battle with Alzheimer's," his son and current Black Enterprise CEO Earl "Butch" Graves Jr. wrote on Twitter "I loved and admired this giant of a man, and am blessed to be his namesake," he said in the tweet. "LOVE YOU DAD!" At 9:22pm this evening, April 6, my Father and Hero Earl Graves Sr., the Founder of @blackenterprise , passed away quietly after a long battle with Alzheimer's. I loved and admired this giant of a man, and am blessed to be his namesake. LOVE YOU DAD! pic.twitter.com/UoerizfX8a "We will evermore celebrate his life and legacy, in this, our 50th Anniversary Year, and beyond," the publication wrote in a tweet Graves Jr. did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment. Graves first launched Black Enterprise in 1970, in an effort to cover black businesses and also provide business strategies to the magazine's readership. "My goal was to show them how to thrive professionally, economically and as proactive, empowered citizens," Graves wrote in his 1997 book "How to Succeed in Business Without Being White." His efforts paid off -- as of 2019, the magazine reaches four million readers, according to the publication Graves went on to create Earl G. Graves, Ltd., the parent company of Earl G. Graves Publishing Company, which produces Black Enterprise magazine. His son, Graves Jr., became the CEO of the company in 2006, though Graves Sr. remained a chairman, according to Black Enterprise In addition to his work in media, Graves also served as the CEO of Pepsi Cola between 1990 and 1998.

Juiz bloqueia fundo eleitoral e partidário e põe verba à disposição do combate ao coronavírus

O juiz federal Itagiba Catta Preta Neto, da 4ª Vara Federal Cível de Brasília, determinou nesta terça-feira, 7, o bloqueio dos fundos eleitoral e partidário para que os valores, que somam quase R$ 3 bilhões, sejam destinados ao combate ao coronavírus. A verba deverá ficar à disposição do governo Jair Bolsonaro para ser usada “em favor de campanhas para o combate à pandemia ou amenizar suas consequências econômicas”, determinou o magistrado. Em janeiro, o presidente sancionou integralmente o Orçamento de 2020, que inclui o Fundo Eleitoral. Conhecido como “fundão”, o dispositivo prevê gasto de R$ 2 bilhões para financiar as campanhas dos candidatos nas eleições municipais previstas para outubro. O valor de R$ 2 bilhões foi aprovado pelo Congresso em dezembro do ano passado. Já o Fundo Partidário foi aprovado no valor de R$ 959 milhões. Leia Também Vice-PGR diz ao STF que Bolsonaro não cometeu crime ao se misturar com manifestantes A decisão do magistrado acolhe ação popular do advogado Felipe Torello Teixeira Nogueira. Documento LEIA A DECISÃO QUE BLOQUEIA OS FUNDOS ELEITORAL E PARTIDÁRIO PDF Segundo o magistrado, a “pandemia que assola toda a Humanidade é grave, sendo descabidas, aqui, maiores considerações sobre aquilo que é público e notório”. “Além da pandemia, e por causa dela, a crise econômica não é mais uma perspectiva. É concreta, palpável. Milhões de trabalhadores informais, autônomos e vários outros, em todo o país, já passam por dificuldades de ordem alimentar inclusive. O fechamento da maioria dos segmentos do comércio, nas maiores cidades brasileiras, tem gerado quebra e desemprego em massa. A economia preocupa tanto ou até mais do que a própria epidemia”, escreve. De acordo com o juiz, os “sacrifícios que se exigem de toda a Nação não podem ser poupados apenas alguns, justamente os mais poderosos, que controlam, inclusive, o orçamento da União”. “Nesse contexto a manutenção de fundos partidários e eleitorais incólumes, à disposição de partidos políticos, ainda que no interesse da cidadania (Art. 1º, inciso II da Constituição), se afigura contrária à moralidade pública, aos princípios da dignidade da pessoa Humana (Art. 1º, inciso III da Constituição), dos valores sociais do trabalho e da livre iniciativa (Art. 1º, inciso IV da Constituição) e, ainda, ao propósito de construção de uma sociedade solidária (Art. 3º, inciso I da Constituição)”, escreve. Do Judiciário ao Congresso O ministro do Tribunal Superior Eleitoral Luis Felipe Salomão negou na segunda, 6, pedido do partido Novo para destinar recursos do fundo partidário para o combate ao novo coronavírus. A verba, no caso da legenda, seria de R$ 34 milhões. A transferência do fundo partidário para o combate ao coronavírus foi levada ao TSE após o Novo não conseguir incluir emenda na PEC do Orçamento de Guerra que permitiria o repasse de recursos do Fundo Partidário e do Fundo Eleitoral. O uso da verba do fundo eleitoral para o combate à pandemia está em discussão nos partidos que possuem as maiores bancadas na Câmara dos Deputados. A proposta tem sido cogitada pelo presidente da Casa, Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ), junto com a redução do salário dos Poderes. Dos quatro partidos ouvidos pelo Estado, PT e PP se manifestaram a favor do uso do fundo eleitoral contra a doença, mas com algumas condições. O MDB avaliou a proposta como “possibilidade” e informou que discute o assunto. Já o PSL, apesar de não se dizer contrário, afirmou que há outras formas de remanejar o orçamento. Na internet, petições populares também são a favor do uso das verbas para o combate ao coronavírus. Mais de 1,3 milhão de pessoas apoiaram abaixo-assinados no site change.org. As petições reuniram o total de assinaturas em três semanas. Somente nas últimas 24 horas, mais de 5 mil pessoas assinaram.

The Car Insurance Industry Is Making a Killing as Everyday People Struggle

My auto insurance bill arrived the other day. I typically set it aside to make the appropriate electronic transfer with barely a second glance. But this time was different. I looked at the amount I owed, same as it ever was, and was suddenly filled with anger over that seemingly unremarkable fact. Then again, these are anything but unremarkable times. The math hit me like a ton of bricks. There are four of us in my household, each with their own car. But none of us are going anywhere. We’re working from home because of California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Gatherings of any size are prohibited, restaurants and bars are closed, and nonessential offices have been shuttered. We’re not driving, in other words, except for occasional forays to buy groceries. Yet our premiums haven't budged at all in response. There's been a lot of talk about suspending rent, mortgage, and even car payments as the economy sputtered to a halt last month, but precious little about car insurance—one of the larger recurring costs faced by any household apart from food, shelter, and healthcare—even as traffic volume around in cities around the world has plunged. Car insurance companies are slowly beginning to realize this, and on Monday, Allstate announced that it would kick back about 15 percent of April and May's premiums to drivers. "Given an unprecedented decline in driving, customers will receive a Shelter-in-Place Payback. This is fair because less driving means fewer accidents," CEO Tom Wilson said. Likewise, a smaller company called American Family Insurance is sending out a one-time $50-per-car payment to all households it covers. But absent a legal mandate, what we're missing is dramatic action from the big players like Geico, State Farm, Nationwide, and Liberty Mutual to set the standard of good corporate behavior for the rest of the auto insurance industry. Simply put, to demand the same amount of money from a beleaguered policyholder at this moment is illogical and immoral. The fact is no one is driving like they used to—even those still commuting to work face emptier highways with fewer assholes to contend with—and so no one should still be paying premiums like they used to. One study by researchers at the University of California-Davis estimates that crashes in the state have dropped by 50 percent since the stay-at-home order was issued in mid-March. Beyond the hard data, anecdotes abound. Outside my door, LA’s streets and freeways are far emptier than when I first got a driver’s license in the mid-70s, and our notorious smog layer has decreased markedly. Outside yours, chances are traffic is exceedingly light to nonexistent, reflected in rock-bottom gas prices across the country even if you live on a main drag that's still seeing a lot of cars. Sure, I could phone my agent and reduce the number of expected annual miles on my policy, but that variable—which isn’t universally offered by all auto insurance companies—is an individual circumstance that a) wouldn’t move the needle much, and b) isn’t the point. No one else is driving either. Accident rates can only plummet as the collective number of miles driven drops profoundly. The math that makes social distancing work to slow the transmission of disease also works when it comes to reducing accident probability. Claims and payouts will have gone into freefall, but payments are as high as ever. None other than Warren Buffet spoke frankly about this as early as March 13th during an interview with Yahoo Finance. Berkshire Hathaway is the parent company of Geico, and Mr. Buffet remarked on a large reduction in accident claims beginning in late February. “People haven’t been driving as much … and it’s noticeable.” More noticeable is that that interview came five days before California Governor Gavin Newsom issued his sweeping statewide order compelling non-essential workers in the country's most populous state to stay at home, to limit gatherings of any size, to close restaurants, bars and gymnasiums. That was five days before the Golden Gate bridge sought financial relief because toll revenues had fallen by 70 percent. And it was two weeks before we all arrived at where we are today.

South Carolina: Gov. McMaster Protects Second Amendment Rights

Expanding on the executive orders he previously issued in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Governor Henry McMaster issued Executive Order 2020-21 requiring individuals to “stay at home,” except for essential tasks, effective today at 5PM. Businesses that previous executive orders allowed to remain open, such as gun stores, can still remain open under this order. At the press conference announcing this new measure, Gov. McMaster affirmed that gun stores can remain open, clearly stating: “It’s a constitutional right to have and bear arms.” Once the COVID-19 virus is contained, we should remember that Gov. McMaster upheld the right of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their loved ones. Please check www.nraila.org/coronavirus to stay up-to-date on all Second Amendment news during COVID-19.

Guendouzi gives his honest opinion on when football should return

The COVID-19 virus started in December and by March, it has seen all leagues including the Premier League get suspended indefinitely to wait until it is safe for football to resume. The virus being contagious has seen all leagues get suspended since football games always bring many people together, Arsenal’s Matteo Guendouzi has spoken out on when he believes football leagues should resume. The Premier League was scheduled to start at the start of April when the league was suspended and then it was later moved to the start of May but that date has also been scrapped as its now indefinitely suspended until the government gives them the green light that it is safe. There have been talks amongst football fans on whether the league will be made null and void but the Premier League has said that this season will 100% be finished and Arsenal showed support to this decision. Arsenal midfielder Matteo Guendouzi who went into quarantine earlier than other players of different Premier League clubs because their head coach Mikel Arteta tested positive for the virus has spoken out his honest opinion on when football should resume and he says that they should start playing once again when the virus has completely been eradicated. “For me, what I think is most important is to not start things up again, no games, no training, until this epidemic stops.” said Guendouzi in a chat with TF1 journalist Julien Maynard. “What’s most important is everybody’s health, and not just in the football world, but in the medical world and the world in general. That’s really what’s most important. I’m in favour of nothing starting up again until this virus is taken off this world.”

German Ministry of Transport Releases Millions in Funding for Purchase of Hydrogen Buses with Fuel Cell Technology

WSW mobil GmbH receives around 2.3 million euros in funding from the state for the purchase of 10 buses The Oberbergische Verkehrsgesellschaft (OVAG) receives 1.23 million euros for the procurement of a bus powered by a fuel cell, plus a hydrogen storage unit The German Ministry of Transport continues to release funds to various transport companies in German, this time it is WSW Mobil and OVAG. WSW mobil GmbH Stadtwerke Wuppertal (WSW mobil GmbH) receives around 1.23 million euros in funding from the state for the purchase of 10 buses with fuel cell technology, including the fueling infrastructure. In addition WSW mobil GmbH will receive another 1.08 million euros for the purchase of a storage unit to supply hydrogen to the fuel cell buses. Stadtwerke generates the required hydrogen in its own waste-to-energy plant. Ulrich Jaeger, Managing Director of WSW mobil GmbH, said: “For Wuppertal and WSW mobil, fuel cell technology is ideal for realizing zero-emission local public transport. Such projects are currently not economically viable without public funding from the state. But politics and transport companies in NRW can be pioneers for green public transport in this way. ”

New B.C. COVID-19 cases appear to be slowing

In the last 48 hours, since the last report on Saturday, there have been 63 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia, bringing the total to 1,266. In the last couple of weeks, numbers of new cases have been higher in a 24-hour period than in the last 48-hour period. "There has been some flattening of the curve in some areas," said B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix. article continues below There was one additional death -- the second in the general community (i.e. not in a long-term care home) -- a man in his 40s, according to public health officer Bonnie Henry. That brings the total death count to 39. "It does go to show us that even younger people are not immune of COVID-19," Henry said. Two COVID-19 cases have been confirmed at a federal correction facility in Mission. It is the second correctional institute in B.C. to have a confirmed case of COVID-19. The number of hospitalizations are down slightly, from 149 on Saturday to 140 today. Of those infected with COVID-19, 783 have recovered. There are 21 long-term care or assisted living facilities with confirmed cases. “Three of the previous ones have been declared over, which means there have been no cases for two incubation periods,” Henry said. “So that’s good news around that.” Despite some promising signs that new cases of COVID-19 may be slowing, Henry warned that current restrictions on social activities, work and movement must be maintained. "This is in the middle of our critical week here for COVID-19," Henry said. "We continue to see clusters and outbreaks in our communities and at facilities, and these hotspots are very concerning. They can quickly escalate and challenge our response -- our ability to keep things under control." Dix expressed concerns about the coming long weekend, and urged people of faith not to hold large gatherings to celebrate Easter. "This is not the time to come together in groups to celebrate," he said. Dix said that B.C. now has 620 ventilators available for critical care beds. As of April 3, more than 47,000 people had been tested for the virus. Here are the numbers for April 6, compared with number from the last report on April 4 in brackets, which is a two-day period: New COVID-19 cases: 63 (29) BC Total: 1,266 (1,203) Deaths: 39 (38) Hospitalized: 140 (149) Intensive care: 72 (68) Recovered:783 (704) Confirmed cases by region: * Vancouver Coastal Health: 580 * Fraser Health: 450 * Island Health: 79 * Interior Health: 128 * Northern Health: 23 Canada-wide, there are 16,487 confirmed COVID-19 cases and there have been 321 deaths. Some provinces have begun setting up checkpoints to restrict the movement of Canadians from other provinces. B.C. has not yet begun restricting non-essential travel from other provinces. nbennett@biv.com @nbennett_biv

Trey Sutton to transfer from CSU

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Colorado State football will be down an experienced linebacker this fall. Trey Sutton, a redshirt junior, posted on Twitter that he has entered the transfer portal and will finish his final two years of eligibility elsewhere. I have entered the transfer portal thanks Colorado state for the past 4 years I will be a grad transfer with 2 years of eligibility looking forward to the future !🙏🏾 — treyy sutton (@treyy_sutton) April 7, 2020 Sutton played in 16 total games over the course of the 2017 and 2018 seasons but did not see any game action in 2019. In total, the 6-foot-0, 230-pound linebacker recorded 27 tackles (9 solo) while in a Rams uniform. Some of Sutton’s most noteworthy performances include a six-tackle showing against Colorado in the 2018 Rocky Mountain Showdown, as well as a career-high seven total tackles in the 2018 loss to Air Force. Coming out of high school, Sutton was ranked the No. 33 prospect in the city of Miami, Florida, and labeled a 3-star recruit. It will be interesting to see if Sutton decides to finish up his collegiate career somewhere closer to home.

'Tigertail' director Alan Yang on the unspoken stories behind Asian parents' journey to America

Perhaps the most poignant dynamic in the upcoming Netflix film “Tigertail” is the arranged marriage between impoverished Taiwanese factory worker Pin-Jui and Zhenzhen, his factory boss’ daughter. Depictions of such relationships often remain archaic: the husband an oppressive, dominating figure, the wife a subservient, quiet caregiver. But writer and director Alan Yang told NBC News in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home that he sought to complicate the concept of the arranged marriage by giving the spouses more equal weight in the storyline and drawing from his observations of his own mother. “My goal in creating any show or movie is really to just be as empathetic as possible to every character and treat every character as if they're the main character of the movie,” Yang said. “I think one of the reasons I was able to do that in this movie is because in some ways that represents my mom," he said of Zhenzhen. "It's not literally her, but I know what my mom went through and I know what happened after my parents got divorced. And I know how hard she worked and how she built her own life in this country and put herself through college and became a teacher.” Creator, Executive Producer Alan Yang speaks onstage at the HRTS Hosts Annual Hitmakes Luncheon at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Oct. 31, 2017. Earl Gibson III / Getty Images file While many Asian Americans from immigrant families are aware of the massive upheaval their parents endured en route to the United States, they are often unfamiliar with the full breadth of loss tied to the old country and the trauma of adjusting to foreign surroundings. Detailed accounts of parents’ frequently devastating experiences are kept mysteries, locked away behind a complicated mix of cultural barriers and a will to forge ahead in their new world. The Morning Rundown Get a head start on the morning's top stories. This site is protected by recaptcha “They don’t have the tools. It’s not necessarily their fault,” Yang explained. “It’s the way they were raised.” “Tigertail,” Yang’s self-proclaimed “love letter” to his family, takes an intimate look at Pin-Jui, a Taiwanese immigrant — the younger version played by Hong-Chi Lee and current version portrayed by Tzi Ma — the love he left behind in his home country, and the generational gap in communication within his family. The director, whose movie is a heavily fictionalized portrayal of his own father’s “coming to America” story,” said that the project was an organic part of deepening his own understanding of his parents’ lives and humanizing them beyond their roles as authority figures. “Making the movie went hand-in-hand with a process of getting to know my parents better already … We were on that trajectory and the movie helped. I think there's no doubt about that,” Yang said. “I think it's a two-way street. It's me reaching out and being more open with them and them doing the same with me, and I feel closer to them than ever before. ... It's becoming an adult and realizing that your parents are people, too.” Told through a series of flashbacks to a young Pin-Jui’s life in Taiwan and his early years in America, “Tigertail” is littered with distinctive cultural references woven together by Taiwanese, Mandarin and English. As specific as the arranged marriage reference feels in a Hollywood movie, Yang says he didn’t feel pressured to bend away from the cultural marker, or any of the others in the film, or make the film more palatable to those outside the Asian community. He argues that audiences may not have any historical knowledge of Taiwan, or skill in Mandarin or Chinese, but can value raw and real material. “There's something about the real thing and having some level of authenticity that people respond to,” he said. “I watched this movie ‘The Battle of Algiers’ the other day. It's one of the masterpieces. I didn't know very much about the Algerian War, but you watch it, you get the people who made the movie knew what they were doing and they did the research and you feel safe in their hands, and then you can start following the human emotional stories that are taking place in that context.” Yang admits that it’s an odd time to promote a movie, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still affecting populations across the world. It’s even more so daunting to be sharing a very Asian American story during a time in which hate attacks toward those in the community have been on the rise. Ma himself was outside a grocery store in Pasadena, California, when a driver rolled down his window and told him that he “should be quarantined.” But maybe, Yang said, a movie like “Tigertail” is timely given the surreal circumstances so many are living in. It can give the Asian American community some sense of unity, he believes. “I had really wished that the country had progressed beyond this point, but it clearly hasn't,” he said. “I think that film can be a way for Asian Americans to come together and watch something that reinforces their strength and their perseverance and their level of sacrifice and coming to this country.” For those outside the Asian American community, Yang said there are universal themes that transcend race. “You know, it's about how we show love to our families, how we talk to the people we love, how we're honest with them, or not honest with them and vulnerable with them or not vulnerable with them,” he said. “It's a universal story of love and passion and love lost and regret.”

A timeline of how years of missteps and budget cuts undermined the Trump administration's preparedness for COVID-19

The US is the global epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak. But the country's path to its current predicament goes back years. The White House disbanded the National Security Council's pandemic response team in May 2018, and two top officials in charge of the response were either fired or abruptly left the administration. The Trump administration has spent the last several years weakening the federal agencies responsible for detecting and preparing for outbreaks like the novel coronavirus. President Donald Trump also ignored multiple warnings, beginning in 2017, of a potential pandemic and dismissed daily intelligence briefings about an impending coronavirus outbreak in the US. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. As of Tuesday morning, the United States currently leads the world in the total number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, with over 378,000 infections, according to an international database from Johns Hopkins University. As the number of infections and deaths continue ticking up in the US, the Trump administration is facing sharp criticism for its actions — or lack thereof — related to responding to the US outbreak. The Trump administration slashed agencies and government programs responsible for detecting and responding to the virus, it ignored multiple warnings of a potential surge, and it publicly downplayed the threat of the pandemic even after it had secured a foothold in the country.

Completing NHL season 'may not be possible'

Advertising Read more Los Angeles (AFP) National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman acknowledged Tuesday the 2019-2020 season could be abandoned as administrators wait to see how the coronavirus pandemic unfolds across North America. In an interview with NBC Sports Network, Bettman said the NHL was leaving all options on the table as the league attempts to plot a course back to a resumption following its COVID-19 shutdown. The league halted play last month as the coronavirus crisis sent professional sports in the US grinding to a halt. With play wiped out in April -- when the postseason had been due to start -- the hiatus leaves the NHL on a tight timetable to complete its season. Bettman admitted that the shortening window could make completing the season impossible. "The best thing, and the easiest thing, would be if at some point we could complete the regular season and then go into the playoffs as we normally do," Bettman said. "We understand that that may not be possible and that's why we're considering every conceivable alternative to deal with whatever the eventuality is. "It doesn't even pay to speculate because nobody in any of the sports knows enough now to make those profound decisions." Bettman participated in a weekend call involving professional sports administrators and President Donald Trump. While Trump has voiced optimism about sport resuming "sooner rather than later", Bettman has damped down speculation of a swift return. "I think right now there's too much uncertainty," said Bettman. "Hopefully we'll all know more by the end of April. "From an NHL standpoint, we're viewing all of our options. We want to be ready to go as soon as we get a green light -- and the green light may not be crystal clear because there may still be some places where we can't play and others places where you can. We're looking at all options. Nothing's been ruled in, nothing's been ruled out. "And it's largely going to be determined what we do by how much time there is because we have next season to focus on as well." Recent reports have suggested the NHL is mulling the possibility of playing games at neutral venues. Similar proposals have been floated for the stalled Major League Baseball season. However Bettman cautioned that any neutral venue solution would need to guarantee fairness to all teams in the NHL. "That's just part of considering all the potential options, depending on how we find the circumstances," he said. "But when you talk about fairness, we also have issues about if we get to play a playoffs, who gets in if we can't complete the regular season." © 2020 AFP

FHI-rapport om epidemi i Norge: «Sannsynlig oppstart for alvor i løpet av året»

– Jeg har sterkt behov for å si at vi ikke kan senke skuldrene. Vi skal videreføre «slå ned-strategien», sa Erna Solberg på tirsdagens pressekonferanse. Samtidig varslet regjeringen en gradvis oppmykning av flere tiltak, blant annet vil de åpne barnehager 20. april og ha alle elever tilbake på skolen før sommeren. Denne oppmykningen kommer samme dag som Folkehelseinstituttet (FHIs) ferskeste anbefaling til regjeringen ble offentliggjort. Der står det svart på hvitt at de regner med en «oppstart» av en covid-19-epidemi i løpet av året: «Vi regner med at Norge vil gjennomgå en covid-19-epidemi med sannsynlig oppstart for alvor i løpet av året. Helsekonsekvensene og belastningene på helsetjenesten blir store», står det i FHIs oppdaterte risikovurdering idag. I rapporten anbefaler FHI også at regjeringen «styrker risikokommunikasjonen» og forbereder befolkningen på at epidemien vil komme, og «mange vil da bli syke og noen alvorlig syke». – Det betyr at vi ikke er sikre på om vi klarer å holde smittespredningen nede på det nivået vi har nå. Vi er ikke sikre på om det kan komme overraskelser, for en slik epidemi har stor grad av uforutsigbarhet i seg. Dette er en sykdom som smitter lett, sier FHI-direktør Camilla Stoltenberg. LES OGSÅ: Slik rammes norsk økonomi av koronaviruset Dette er de syv endringene regjeringen presenterte tirsdag: Ekspandér faktaboks 20. april: Barnehager åpner. De som trenger mer tid, kan vente til 27. april. 20. april: Forbudet mot å overnatte på fritidseiendom, det såkalte hytteforbudet, oppheves. 20. april: Helsefaglige virksomheter med én-til-én-kontakt, som fysioterapeuter og psykologer, kan gjenoppta en større del av virksomheten, men må følge nye smittevernstandarder. 27. april: Elever på 1.–4. trinn i grunnskolen kan komme tilbake på skolen og skolefritidsordningen åpner. 27. april: Videregående skoler åpner for yrkesfagelever på VG2 og VG3. 27. april: Universiteter, høyskoler og fagskoler åpner for studenter og ansatte som er i sluttfasen av studier og prosjekter, og som er helt avhengige av utstyr på lærestedet. Senest 27. april: Andre tjenester med én-til-én-kontakt, som frisører og hudpleiere, kan gjenåpne om de oppfyller krav om smitteverntiltak og den nye bransjestandarden. – Stor risiko Hun understreker at situasjonen på kort sikt har bedret seg, og fastholder at regjeringens plan for oppmykning i koronatiltakene ikke skiller seg stort fra rådene fra FHI. – Nå har man med veldig omfattende tiltak greid å få til ting som ikke var åpenbart at var mulig for noen uker siden. Og så kan det komme nye utfordringer videre fremover. – Hvor stor er risikoen for at det kommer en ny topp senere i år? – Det er stor risiko for at smittetallet vil gå over 1 igjen. Planen nå er å oppdage det veldig tidlig. På den måten kan vi teste, spore og isolere de syke slik at vi klarer å få smittetallet ned igjen. Usikkerhet om vaksine Også Helsedirektoratet ser store usikkerheter i regjeringens virus-strategi, og er ikke sikker på om den er gjennomførbar. «Det store usikkerhetsmomentet er at vi per i dag ikke vet om det vil bli mulig å bekjempe denne pandemien med en vaksine. Uten vaksine vil noe av fundamentet for slå-ned-strategien være borte. Da må tiltakene videreføres i ubestemt tid, eller til det kommer en effektiv medisin», skriver Helsedirektoratet i sin anbefaling publisert idag. «Slå ned»-strategien forutsetter at man greier å holde smitten nede innenfor egne landegrenser til en vaksine eller effektiv behandling er klar. Begge deler kan ligge flere år frem i tid. Uansett vil strategien kreve strenge karanteneregler for innreise i lang tid fremover. Direktoratet anbefaler likevel at «slå ned»-strategien fortsetter en stund til, om ikke annet for å vinne tid. Det er nemlig betydelig enklere å slippe opp enn å stramme inn: «I løpet av noen få uker vil vi trolig ha et langt bedre beslutningsgrunnlag enn vi har i dag. Det vil være mye lettere å gå fra en slå-ned-strategi enn motsatt vei. Slipper vi opp på for mange av tiltakene i tråd med en bremse-strategi nå, må landet stenges ned på nytt hvis det senere blir nødvendig eller ønskelig å gå tilbake til en slå-ned-strategi», skriver direktoratet. Kan bli isolert på hotell Sterkere karantene- og isolasjonstiltak er også noe Folkehelsedirektoratet ser på som nødvendig. Det kan bety at smittede i byene får tilbud om å isolere seg på hoteller. – Det vil fortsatt være aktuelt med isolering hjemme der det er mulig. Men der det ikke er mulig å få til, må det bli et annet tilbud. Men det skal skje med frivillighet, understreker Stoltenberg. På «Dagsnytt 18» forsvarte helseminister Bent Høie dagens oppmykning: – Det har kostet å få kontroll, men det er lett å miste kontrollen igjen, sa Bent Høie på Dagsnytt 18, og gjentok at strategien er å "slå ned" viruset. – Vi har tro på at vi kan gjøre dette uten å få en økt smittespredning, men vi må følge veldig nøye med. Camilla Stoltenberg sa i samme sending at hun ikke syns det var for tidlig å åpne opp nå: – Jeg mener det er klokt at vi gjør dette sammen, kontrollert og over tid. Når det gjelder skoler og barnehager, så vet vi for eksempel ikke om det er dårligere for smittespredning at vi ikke har åpne skoler og barnehager. Hvis vi gradvis åpner opp, så kan vi få testet ut dette systematisk.

NBA, Nico Mannion dice addio ad Arizona e si dichiara per il Draft 2020

La point guard di Arizona ha scelto di lasciare il college e tentare l'avventura NBA. Per l'azzurro è un sogno che si avvera: "Sto studiando filmati su filmati di Steve Nash e Chris Paul" “One-and-done”, un anno e poi il coronamento del suo sogno, la NBA: Nico Mannion l’aveva confessato anche ai microfoni di Sky Sport e oggi quel suo sogno è diventato realtà, con l’annuncio di voler entrare a far parte del Draft NBA 2020. La point guard di Arizona — che ha concluso la sua unica stagione NCAA con 14 punti e 5.3 assist di media, meritandosi l’inclusione nel miglior quintetto della sua conference — ha visto il suo nome proiettato in diverse posizioni del primo giro di scelte al prossimo Draft: arrivato addirittura a essere considerato un prospetto da top 10, recenti report sembravano invece averlo retrocesso sul finire del primo giro, mentre il network ESPN lo mantiene stabilmente al n°14 nel suo mock Draft. Grande intelligenza cestistica nonostante la giovanissima età, buonissime doti di passatore e grande raggio di tiro dalla lunga distanza, Mannion dovrà probabilmente irrobustirsi ancora fisicamente per reggere — soprattutto difensivamente — il passaggio ai professionisti. “L’esperienza maturata a livello internazionale sarà un grande vantaggio per me”, ha dichiarato Mannion alla stampa USA. “Fin da quando ho 16 anni ho giocato a livello internazionale, contro veri professionisti. Penso di aver dimostrato già all’Hoop Summit [la sfida tra i migliori liceali USA e i pari età di tutto il mondo, ndr] di poter appartenere a questo livello: penso di essere uno dei migliori playmaker puri di questo Draft, e se magari ad Arizona non ho tirato benissimo da fuori, in passato ho dimostrato che il tiro certo non mi manca”. Una palestra a disposizione, pesi e tiri per migliorare Mannion poi ha rivelato che nonostante in Arizona sia in atto come in molte altre parti degli Stati Uniti un vero e proprio lockout per contenere l’epidemia di coronavirus, il prospetto azzurro ha a disposizione vicino a casa una palestra (“Dove posso entrare solo io”) nella quale continua ad allenarsi: “Faccio pesi e tiro, lavoro su ogni aspetto del mio gioco che posso perfezionare: può essere il passaggio, il ball-handling, la capacità di sfruttare i blocchi, ma sto lavorando anche per allungare il mio raggio di tiro. Provo a vedere questo tempo libero imposto dal lockdown come un’opportunità di migliorare: guardo a ripetizione filmati di Steve Nash e Chris Paul, come sfruttano loro i blocchi per entrare nel cuore delle difese avversarie e poi punirle con il floater”. E maestri migliori, obiettivamente, non poteva scegliersi.

Reunited Female Cat in Holmdel, NJ 07733 (ID: 6138945)

Matcha's Owner/Finder Says Matcha was found safely around her home after going missing for a couple of days. We want to thank everyone for their kind words and sharing this post of Matcha.

4chan's Audrey Page (Golden Girl) by blink-blink-blink on DeviantArt

It always feels a little strange randomly running into something from 4chan while diving into DA. Never the less, really good job. I might not be into erotic art, (something you seem to be focused on), but you have some real artistic talent.

The Florida Project

Coming Soon Katla A year after a subglacial volcano erupts, mysterious elements from prehistoric times emerge from the melting ice, bringing unforeseen consequences. Lulli After getting electrocuted by an MRI machine, an ambitious young medical student begins to hear the thoughts of others. Starring Larissa Manoela. Enola Holmes While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord. His House Jacob and the Sea Beast A legendary sea monster hunter's life is turned upside down when a young girl stows away on his ship and befriends the most dangerous beast of them all. Alien Xmas When extraterrestrials attempt to steal Earth's gravity, only the gift-giving spirit of Christmas -- and a small alien named X -- can save the world. Centaurworld A hardened war horse transported away from battle finds herself in a land that's inhabited by silly, singing centaurs of all shapes and sizes. My Father's Dragon Based on the Newbery-winning children's books, this animated film follows a young boy who runs away to an island to rescue and befriend a baby dragon.

Immunity-Boosting – Green Smoothie Recipe

Now that I’m pretty well settled in the lockdown routine and know that it’s going to be a long time ahead, I’ve decided to unlock my culinary talent. And the last thing I want to indulge in is the unhealthy goodies that sound so tempting. Rather my agenda for this period is to eat healthy and feel energetic, that too while relishing the recipes I create. And the fact that I have two fussy eaters at home makes the challenge even bigger. Still, I love cooking for the family and discovering recipes that are delicious and healthy at the same time. My favourite that I’d want to share with health buffs is the super-healthy, awesome Green Smoothie recipe that I mixed up by chance. But believe me, it is my choice now as I shake it up every other day. Vegan and made with lots of healthy ingredients, this amazing shake is just right for breakfast and keeps my energy levels up to match the challenges of work from home, even while I juggle with loads of housework and an energetic 6-year old! The best thing about my Green Smoothie is that it has ingredients that are all easily available at home. And if you don’t have one of them, you can find an easy alternative in your refrigerator or kitchen cabinet. So here is a list of the ingredients I use to shake up a jugful for my family. Print Recipe Immunity-Boosting Green Smoothie My favourite that I’d want to sharewith health buffs is the super-healthy, awesome Green Smoothie recipe that Imixed up by chance. But believe me, it is my choice now as I shake it up everyother day. Vegan and made with lots of healthy ingredients, this amazing shake isjust right for breakfast and keeps my energy levels up to match the challengesof work from home, even while I juggle with loads of housework and an energetic6-year old! Prep Time 5 mins Cook Time 1 min Total Time 6 mins Servings: 1 person Calories: 220 kcal Author: Archana Cost: £2 – £3 Equipment Blender Ingredients 1 Cup Chopped Kale 1 Cup Spinach Leaves 1 inch cube Ginger 1 tablespoon Flax Seeds 7 pieces Almonds 1 tbsp Honey 1/2 Banana 125 ml Coconut Milk Instructions Once you have all the ingredients onyour shelf, it’s time to get started. Here is a list of instructions to createthe most yummilicious, gorgeous-looking Green Smoothie in just three steps anda couple of minutes. Put all the ingredients in a blenderand blend them till smooth; make sure that there are no chunks of the leafygreens or fruits. Once you mix up the perfect smoothie, taste it and perfect it. Ensurethat it has just the right consistency and temperature. If you want your kid totry it, I’d suggest adding some honey for the healthy sweet kick. You can evenadd a dash of lemon to balance the bitterness of the greens. My secretingredient is ginger because I love the zing it brings to the drink. Even mylittle one loves it! After perfecting the flavours, justgive it a final whisk in the blender to get that amazing smooth consistency andvibrant green colour. You can refrigerate the drink for up to 24 hours, thoughI prefer blending a fresh batch every time. If you do want to use arefrigerated batch, be sure to shake it up before drinking. Video Notes I’m sure you’d love this recipe as it is just the pick-me-up you need when you feel the blues of the lockdown effect. You can try a few variations every time as I do. For instance, you can use pineapple or mango in place of banana. Toss in nuts and seeds of your choice. Or just experiment with any juice, water or any other milk. I like honey and ginger, though they are optional too. And I’d surely want to list down the nutritional benefits of each of the ingredients so that you appreciate my smoothie’s health value as much as its taste. Kale–High in antioxidants and vitamin C, detoxifies naturally, lowers cholesterol levels Spinach- Loaded with folic acid, carotenoids, vitamin C, vitamin K, iron, and calcium, cleanses your skin inside out Ginger–Improves digestion, protects from cold and flu, reduces inflammation naturally Flax seeds – Rich in fiber, omega-3 fats and high quality proteins, give instant energy boost Almonds-Contain fiber, healthy fats, protein, magnesium and vitamin E, reduce hunger and promote weight control Honey – Healthiest alternative to sugar, rich in antioxidants Banana-Nutritious, filling and hefty source of energy, minus unhealthy fats and cholesterol Coconut milk- High in antioxidants, strengthens immunity and aids weight loss Seeing these benefits, you will probably understand why I have settled for these ingredients for mixing up my Green Smoothie. And if you have some great ideas, do share them here. Happy Blending!! Best Green Smoothie Eat Healthy!