Something unintentionally funny keeps happening on the politically feverish fringes of Scottish social media.

IT could have been a warm welcome home for a conquering comedy hero when Billy Connolly appeared before an audience of Scottish school children at the BBC in Glasgow.

PREPARATIONS to give out millions of coronavirus vaccines must start now or Scotland risks compounding the economic damage caused by the pandemic, a leading expert has warned.

The government's new public slogan for the next phase in the fight against coronavirus has fallen flat ahead of its proposed reveal tonight.

The Herald is bringing live coronavirus updates and breaking news from Scotland, the UK and the world.

Source: www.androidcentral.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
After being delayed back in April due to the coronavirus, UFC 249 is back on and we have all the details on how you can watch the highly anticipated event online or on TV in the U.S., Canada, UK and Australia. UFC 249 was originally scheduled to take place in Brooklyn, New York but the UFC had to relocate the event to the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. However, while the event is back on, there won't be any fans in attendance for Saturday's fights for safety reasons. The venue may have changed and fans won't be crowded around the octagon but many of the fights originally scheduled for UFC 249 will be included on the new card. The biggest change though is that Tony Ferguson will now be taking on Justin Gaethje in the Interim UFC Lightweight Championship as Khabib Nurmagomedov is unable to leave his home country of Russia due to its coronavirus travel restrictions. Ferguson is known for his incredible cardio and pressure while Gaethje's kill or be killed mentality sets himself apart from the pack. Ferguson also hasn't lost a match since May 2012 and in that time, he's won 12 fights and defeated Kevin Lee, Anthony Pettis, Donald Cerrone and more. Gaethje on the other hand is on a three fight winning streak following back-to-back losses. In addition to the interim lightweight championship, Henry Cejudo will go up against Dominick Cruz for the UFC bantamweight championship. Elsewhere on the card, Francis Nga

Source: www.mprnews.org - Saturday, May 09, 2020
A barber cuts a woman's hair at a salon amid the coronavirus pandemic in Round Rock, Texas, on May 8, following a slow reopening of the Texas economy. Sergio Flores | AFP via Getty Images As of Friday, in Texas you can go to a tanning salon. In Indiana, houses of worship are being allowed to open with no cap on attendance. Meanwhile places like Pennsylvania are taking a more cautious approach, only starting to ease restrictions in some counties based on the number of COVID-19 cases. By Monday at least 31 states will have partially reopened after seven weeks of restrictions. The moves come as President Trump pushes for the country to get back to work — while many public health experts warn that it's too soon. "The early lesson that was learned, really, we learned from the island of Hokkaido in Japan, where they did a really good job of controlling the initial phase of the outbreak," said Bob Bednarczyk, assistant professor of Global Health and Epidemiology at the Rollins School of public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. COVID-19 in Minnesota Full coverage from MPR News Tracking the spread Minnesota and the Upper Midwest COVID-19 How it compares with other diseases in 5 charts But then because of that success many of the restrictions on the island were lifted. Cases and deaths surged in a second wave of infections. Twenty-six days later, the island was back on lockdown . "That's the concern that we have right now," he said.

Source: www.businessinsider.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
The US Navy sent two ships into the middle of a South China Sea dispute on Thursday as the commander of US Pacific Fleet warned China to stop "bullying" other countries in the region. A US Navy littoral combat ship and a cargo vessel conducted "presence operations" near the West Capella, a Malaysia-contracted drillship at the heart of a standoff with China and, to some extent, Vietnam. Adm. John Aquilino, commander of US Pacific Fleet, said in a statement Thursday that China "must end its pattern of bullying Southeast Asians out of offshore oil, gas, and fisheries." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . The US Navy warned China to stop "bullying" other countries in the South China Sea as two Navy ships sailed into the middle of a dispute in the contested waterway. The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Montgomery and the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Cesar Chavez conducted "presence operations" near the West Capella, showing apparent support for the Malaysia-contracted drillship that has been hassled by Chinese ships in recent months. Adm. John Aquilino, commander of US Pacific Fleet, said in a statement Thursday that the US is "committed to a rules-based order in the South China Sea and we will continue to champion freedom of the seas and the rule of law." He continued: "The Chinese Communist Party must end its pattern of bullying Southeast Asians out of offshore oil, gas, and fisheries. Mi

Source: www.businessinsider.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
Mother's Day is the single most important holiday for flower shops, with many businesses relying on strong holiday sales to survive the summertime slowdown in demand for flowers. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, spring 2020 got off to an ominous start for florists across the United States. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. CEO Chris McCann and BloomNation CEO and cofounder Farbod Shoraka told Business Insider that their florist partners are seeing a major uptick in spending in the run-up to Mother's Day. The National Retail Federation is projecting that flower sales on Mother's Day will increase from $2.01 billion to $2.1 billion in 2020. Despite the good news, there remain major challenges to florists and the flower industry as a whole during COVID-19, including a major downturn for growers and wholesalers, reduced staffing, and even figuring out distribution capabilities. But Society of American Florists CEO Kate Penn told Busines Insider that florists are some of the "resourceful" and scrappy business owners out there: "Come rain, sleet, or social distancing they'll figure out how to get it delivered." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . For flower shops across the United States, Mother's Day is the most important date on the calendar. Millions of Americans setting out to make their moms feel special with a bright bouquet consistently ensure that the second Sunday of May is the biggest holiday in the flower business

Source: api-internal.usatoday.com.akadns.net - Friday, May 08, 2020
Vice President Pence's trip to Iowa shows how the Trump administration's aims to move past coronavirus are sometimes complicated by the virus itself.            

Source: www.inquisitr.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
Little Richard, real name Richard Wayne Penniman, has died at the age of 87, per Rolling Stone . The performer’s cause of death is unknown. Little Richard Dead, Legendary Musician Dies At 87 is an article from: The Inquisitr Click here to continue and read more...

Source: www.sohh.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
Canadian hip-hop artist NAV isn’t letting quarantine stop him from having fun. The rap star has linked up with Young Thug for their new “No Debate” music video premiere. Watch and comment below! The post Watch: NAV Teams Up W/ Young Thug For New No Debate Music Video appeared first on .

Source: www.vox.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
Trump gestures during an event with House Republicans on Friday. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images The president wants you to believe the US response is the envy of the world. It isn’t. The United States has endured over 78,000 coronavirus deaths as of May 8, far more than double the second hardest-hit country. Unlike most comparable countries, the trajectory of the per-day death toll has not yet meaningfully bent down here nor has the number of new cases diagnosed each day. By contrast, Germany and Japan combined have had just over 9,000 confirmed Covid-related deaths. Though Japan didn’t get off to a great start , the number of new cases per day has been hovering around 200 there. In Germany, it’s around 1,000 . In either case, the new case numbers are far below the nearly 15,000 identified in the US on Thursday. Put succinctly, while both countries continue to grapple with the virus and life is far from normal for people there, the pandemic has been somewhat brought under control to an extent Americans can only dream of. Here, by contrast, things aren’t really improving — and there’s no indication our federal government is capable of meeting the challenge. In fact, it’s quite the opposite . And yet to hear President Donald Trump tell it, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are enamored by his fantastic response to the novel coronavirus, and they’re following his lead. They’ve even told him as m

Source: hyperallergic.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
It’s an era of masks, but Ýrúrarí Jóhannsdóttir’s knitted versions are the fantastical creations we need to see right now. Not sure if they are exactly ideal for a pandemic, but they make us smile amidst the zaniness. More knitted masks and info on Colossal . (via Colossal ) I’ve been thinking about this article since I read it earlier this week and I highly suggest you read it too. Immunoprivilege is a thing and there’s a long US history around it, according to Kathryn Olivarius: Yellow fever, a mosquito-borne flavivirus, was inescapable in the 19th-century Deep South and a point of near-constant terror in New Orleans, the region’s hub. In the six decades between the Louisiana Purchase and the Civil War, New Orleans experienced 22 full-blown epidemics, cumulatively killing over 150,000 people. (Perhaps another 150,000 died in nearby American cities.) The virus killed about half of all those it infected and it killed them horribly, with many victims vomiting thick black blood, the consistency and color of coffee grounds. The lucky survivors became “acclimated,” or immune for life. I can’t stop laughing at this: A wall slashes right thru the the heart of Midtown Manhattan, courtesy of ????????????????, A Real Estate developer, sometimes a museum and NY Times is concerned about a hypothetical wall on the Far West Side of the Town. https://t.co/e2B9HmOczh pic.twitter.com/nBLUPDGT0Y — Garo Gumusyan (@GaroGumusyan) January 21, 2020 Bhakti Sh

Source: www.mmafighting.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
Check out video reaction to breaking news that UFC middleweight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza has tested positive for coronavirus and is out of his UFC 249 fight against Uriah Hall .

No method is infallible when trying to reduce Bible poverty among the least reached, an OM worker discovers as he distributed Bibles.

“Aren’t there enough churches in Italy?” Not to reach the 50,000 people in Pisa, says OM team, who plants La Torre.

OM Ministry Leader, Lenna Lidstone, discusses how to use Discovery Bible Studies to see vibrant communities of Jesus Followers among the least reached.

In Arctic Russia, reindeer are the Nenets' life. Living among these people, ES longs for the Nenets to know Jesus, the true source of life.

African women who never went to school were unable to read the Bible upon becoming Christ followers. A new opportunity is giving them access to God's Word firsthand.

Jude, project coordinator of OM's Refugee Relief Serbia describes her busy role, and how OM’s service can be a powerful practical witness of the love of Jesus to hundreds of refugees.

For the Kurdish people, the future is uncertain. But the gospel message that believers want to share with them is one of overwhelming hope.

Prayer and fasting have been part of the Algerian Church's lifestyle since its beginning. Unity among believers has contributed to ongoing spiritual strength amidst persecution.

Years of consistent Christ-centred community allow an OM worker to develop friendships with Pakistani women and study the Bible with them.

Children's club at the church in Tkvarcheli, which is held by MDT students, impacts lives of local children and gives them hope.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

If God can speak to a national faith believer, and move him to cross continents to share his love for Jesus with other refugees, despite dangers and difficulties, what more might He achieve with more workers prepared to take the same risks for the gospel?

Algeria could transform missions in the Middle East, with a new ministry seeking to send 1,000 Algerian missionaries by 2025.

A short-term creative outreach team helps long-term workers connect with several young men in a least-reached area.

Small outreach teams will share the life-changing message of the gospel with hundreds of women in brothels and on the street this Easter.

Bahia Blanca, Argentina :: A missionary couple teaches church members about serving God as a family.

Ali Geake, Internal Communications Director, discusses the change living in another culture has had on her life and outlook.

A single mother finds hope through a Self Help Group and is sharing the good news.

People in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe are still recovering from Cyclone Idai. OM is responding to the needs in different communities in these countries.

The leader said: "This is a secret; if we started to teach about Jesus in our mosques then we might as well open churches."

In partnership with local churches, a team shared the good news of Easter through music with all kinds of people in Austria.

Ariela left Argentina to serve Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and ended up going on a journey she never could have imagined.

“As I watched the ending scene (that lasted about three minutes) I thought about the “happy ending” notion,” says Ava. “Is it real or is it a fairy tale? A utopia created by Hollywood to give their viewers a false sense of hope in the reality of a broken world? And so, I said to myself: I believe in happy endings.”

The Bailie family serve with their local church as part of OM in Ireland's Philippian Project.

In 2008, OM Ireland purchased Lacken House to be their headquarters. Ten years and hundreds of people later, the team continues to minister from the heart of Ireland.

In 2019, OM Ireland hosted its largest St. Patrick's outreach.

Workers Berni and Carla are passionate about reaching the East of Turkey and encouraged by spiritual growth happening there.

How prayer shaped the history of OM and how important prayer still is today.

Lima, Peru :: A Logos Hope team joins an inspirational pastor ministering to the children of criminals.

"[The village] didn’t know about the cyclone." OM worker Macdonald tells how his village experienced Cyclone Idai.

The journey of a young Albanian girl from the Roma and Gypsy community who went from being a troubled teenager to excitedly following Jesus!

Saskia perseveres through language learning and connects with a young Albanian girl who becomes a follower of Jesus.

Realising the need for biblical role models, OM partnered with a local church to send a couple, Kelvin and Florence, to Crocodile Island as missionaries.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia :: God surprises a Logos Hope crewmember with birthday treats and new perspectives as she serves with a team on shore.

Montevideo, Uruguay :: Logos Hope returns to the water after annual maintenance and her crew prepares to resume the floating ministry.