Indian authorities used drones and fire engines to disinfect the pandemic-hit city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, as virus cases surged and police clashed with migrant workers protesting against a reinforced lockdown. The western city of 5.5 million people in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state has become a major concern for authorities as they battle an uptick in coronavirus deaths and cases across India.

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it is dropping its criminal case against President Trump's first national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn twice admitted in court he lied to the FBI about his conversations with Russia's U.S. ambassador, and then cooperated in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. It was an unusual move by the Justice Department, and CNN's legal and political analysts smelled a rat."Attorney General [William] Barr is already being accused of creating a special justice system just for President Trump's friends," and this will only feed that perception, CNN's Jake Tapper suggested. Political correspondent Sara Murray agreed, noting that the prosecutor in the case, Brandon Van Grack, withdrew right before the Justice Department submitted its filing, just like when Barr intervened to request a reduced sentence for Roger Stone.National security correspondent Jim Sciutto laid out several reason why the substance of Flynn's admitted lie was a big deal, and chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was appalled. "It is one of the most incredible legal documents I have read, and certainly something that I never expected to see from the United States Department of Justice," Toobin said. "The idea that the Justice Department would invent an argument -- an argument that the judge in this case has already rejected -- and say that's a basis for dropping a case where a defendant admitted his guilt shows that this is a case where the fix was in."Barr told CBS News' Cathrine Herridge on Thursday that dropping Flynn's case actually "sends the message that there is one standard of justice in this country." Herridge told Barr he would take flak for this, asking: "When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written?" Barr laughed: "Well, history's written by the winners. So it largely depends on who's writing the history." Watch below. More stories from theweek.com Outed CIA agent Valerie Plame is running for Congress, and her launch video looks like a spy movie trailer 7 scathing cartoons about America's rush to reopen Trump says he couldn't have exposed WWII vets to COVID-19 because the wind was blowing the wrong way

Guillaume Kon Kam King, Antonio Canale, Matteo Ruggiero.

Source: Bayesian Analysis, Volume 14, Number 4, 1121--1141.

Abstract:
Motivated by the problem of forecasting demand and offer curves, we introduce a class of nonparametric dynamic models with locally-autoregressive behaviour, and provide a full inferential strategy for forecasting time series of piecewise-constant non-decreasing functions over arbitrary time horizons. The model is induced by a non Markovian system of interacting particles whose evolution is governed by a resampling step and a drift mechanism. The former is based on a global interaction and accounts for the volatility of the functional time series, while the latter is determined by a neighbourhood-based interaction with the past curves and accounts for local trend behaviours, separating these from pure noise. We discuss the implementation of the model for functional forecasting by combining a population Monte Carlo and a semi-automatic learning approach to approximate Bayesian computation which require limited tuning. We validate the inference method with a simulation study, and carry out predictive inference on a real dataset on the Italian natural gas market.

French translation of BIS press release on the presentation of the Annual Economic Report 2018, 24 June 2018. Les responsables des politiques publiques peuvent prolonger la phase de croissance actuelle en engageant des réformes structurelles, en restaurant les marges de manoeuvre monétaires et budgétaires pour faire face aux menaces futures et en encourageant une mise en oeuvre rapide des réformes réglementaires, indique la Banque des Règlements Internationaux (BRI) dans son Rapport économique annuel. ...

Spanish translation of press release - the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is finalising stress-testing principles, reviews ways to stop regulatory arbitrage behaviour, agrees on annual G-SIB list, discusses leverage ratio, crypto-assets, market risk framework and implementation, 20 September 2018.

To view more press releases, please visit http://www.snl.com/irweblinkx/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://www.snl.com/irweblinkx/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

Speech by Mr Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, at the Fourteenth ASBA-BCBS-FSI High-level Meeting on Global and Regional Supervisory Priorities, Lima, 1 October 2019.

Did you know that cash transfer (CT) programmes in countries of the sub-Saharan Africa actually have a significant impact? In Malawi, these programmes helped families invest in agricultural equipment and livestock to produce their own food and reduce levels of negative coping strategies, like begging and school drop-outs. In Kenya, secondary school attendance rose by 9 percent and access to [...]

Radio culture is gaining more and more ground as millions of listeners take to audio podcasts as a convenient and accessible way to learn new information.  Which is why FAO is stepping up into the medium to bring you insights into some of the issues concerning food and agriculture worldwide. Here are the first seven audio offerings of FAO’s new podcast [...]

Cash transfer programmes – regular money payments to poor households - aim to reduce poverty, promote sustainable livelihoods and increase production in the developing world. During the past decade, an increasing number of governments in sub-Saharan Africa have launched cash transfer programmes that target the most vulnerable groups, including subsistence farmers, people with disabilities and HIV/AIDS, as well as families [...]

Buy fresh and seasonal produce at the Farmers’ Market on
Wednesday 26 February from 12.00 – 16.00 hours, and be sure to visit the [...]

Winds on WASP-76b blow gaseous iron into cooler regions, where it condenses and falls to the planet’s surface as liquid

Architects and designers restored royal ruins across Europe to their former glory

'The break in the scientific record is probably unprecedented,' one ecologist says

We’re really, really sorry

Buried in a mass grave in Mexico City, the trio may have been part of the first generation abducted from their homeland and brought to the New World

“Care Package” showcases Asian American and Pacific Islander artists, writers and scholars as sources of solace during the Covid-19 pandemic

Public Health has recorded no new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, said a news release from the government. 

The Thunder Bay District Health Unit (TBDHU) confirmed one new case of COVID-19 in its catchment area Thursday, bringing the total in the area to 77, with 65 of those listed as resolved.

Newfoundland and Labrador's already fragile economy suffered another gut-punch in April, with Statistics Canada reporting Friday that 29,000 jobs were lost in April alone.

The province is still on track to move to a lower alert level Monday, which would ease some of the public health measures in place aimed at curbing COVID-19.

There are 14 active cases of COVID-19 remaining in the province.

The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Sveriges Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank, together with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), have created a group to share experiences as they assess the potential case for central bank digital currency (CBDC) in their home jurisdictions. (Press release, 21 January 2020)

The latest death was at the Northwood long-term care home in Halifax.

Tampa Bay Rays' Blake Snell claimed champion status after defeating Lucas Giolito of the Chicago White Sox in the inaugural MLB The Show player league on Sunday.

Eight COVID-19 cases are now connected to that workplace, including six employees.

Health PEI plans to create a COVID-19 unit within the Prince Edward Home to be used for any long-term care resident — living in any long-term care facility on the Island — who is diagnosed with the virus.

All of P.E.I.'s 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19 are now considered recovered, said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Heather Morrison.

1. Coronavirus Outbreak Updates: Maharashtra reports 1,089 new COVID-19 cases across state, 748 in Mumbai; total infections at 19,063  Firstpost
2. Migrant workers | Maharashtra train accident victims were battling hunger  The Hindu
3. Maharashtra: They thought no trains were running, loco driver spotted them too late to stop  The Indian Express
4. ‘Stay where you are’: Shivraj Chouhan appeals to migrants after train tragedy  Hindustan Times
5. MP Ministers Ask Shivraj to Probe Tenure of Kamal Nath to ‘Expose Massive Corruption’  News18
6. View Full coverage on Google News

The number of cases of COVID-19 in First Nations reserves continues to rise this week, with 161 confirmed positive cases reported as of May 5.

One of the two grocery stores in La Loche, Sask., has shut temporarily after one of its employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to an executive at the North West Company. 

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde says COVID-19 infection rates among First Nations people are undercounted as a result of failures in information sharing between federal, provincial and territorial governments.

About half of the confirmed or presumptive cases of COVID-19 in Waterloo region have been marked as resolved, according to numbers released by Region of Waterloo Public Health on Saturday.

Provincial health officers say they have confirmed 29 new cases of the virus and one additional death from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

Twenty-five years after meeting Johnny Cash, a Newfoundland musician is trying to track down a photo of the pair.

Matteo Tranchellini and Moreno Monti created a coffee table book called CHICken to showcase the natural beauty of the ubiquitous birds.

The Royal Canadian Mint's newest offering features Manitoba's most famous UFO encounter, which happened in 1967 when Stefan Michalak went looking for precious metals near Falcon Lake.

Mayor John Tory, Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city's medical officer of health, and Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, head of the city's emergency response team, spoke at a city hall news conference Thursday afternoon.

Region of Waterloo Public Health says there are 44 positive cases of COVID-19 at the Breslau meat processing facility Conestoga Meats.

Toronto officials reported 180 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, a figure that represents a dip when compared to the more than 200 cases announced daily this week. 

Ontario reported its lowest new COVID-19 case count of the week on Saturday with 346 new confirmed cases of the virus. Meanwhile, the government has issued an emergency order allowing school board employees to be voluntarily redeployed to hospitals, long-term care homes, retirement homes and women's shelters.

The province's networks of labs processed 15,179 tests in the last 24 hours, more than any of the three days previous but still short of the 16,000 tests per day target set back in April.

After several days in which fewer than 400 cases of COVID-19 were added to the provincial tally, Friday's report was up again, with 477 new cases reported.

Russia marked 75 years since the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War on Saturday, but the coronavirus outbreak forced it to scale back celebrations seen as boosting support for President Vladimir Putin.

An inmate at the Calgary Remand Centre has tested positive for COVID-19, marking the first time a case has been reported at an Alberta correctional facility.

Alberta recorded one more death to COVID-19 and 81 new cases, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Friday.

The bonspiel took place in Edmonton March 11-14, starting the same day COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.