The race is on for improved testing, treatment and a vaccine for Covid-19. One company is partnering with Microsoft to decode how the human immune system responds to the virus. Chad Robins, Adaptive Biotechnologies CEO and co-founder, joins "Squawk Box" to discuss ways to make testing more reliable.

Kroger chairman and CEO Rodney McCullen joins "Squawk on the Street" to discuss reopening the economy, keeping store shelves stocked and more.

George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, joins "Squawk Alley" to discuss the company's earnings and outlook for the business.

Kare Schultz, CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals, joins "Squawk on the Street" to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and treatment.

Purchasing gift cards are a way to support struggling small businesses. But if they don't make it out of the pandemic, you will be out of pocket.

Even before the pandemic, affordable child care was a struggle for most. Now parents are squeezed by a near-complete lack of help, with daycare centers, schools and probably summer camps closed.

Donald Trump has asserted with no evidence that the coronavirus pandemic will ‘go away without a vaccine’. Without mentioning specifics, he pointed to other viruses and flus that ‘disappeared’ before vaccines were created. ‘They’ve never shown up again. They die, too. Like everything else, they die,’ Trump said. ‘It’s going to go away. And we’re not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time.’

• Global report: Trump says Covid-19 will ‘go away without vaccine’, expects US death toll to top 95,000
  
• Coronavirus US live: Trump fumes as White House staffers test positive and death toll nears 80,000

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Power struggle between Bashar al-Assad and first cousin sparks rare family fissure and leaves public aghast

A defiant tyrant and his ruthless wife square up against the family oligarch, with the spoils of a nation at stake. It could be standard Ramadan television fare, but not this year. Instead, all the intrigue of Syria’s ruling family has been laid out in a spectacular real-life drama that has gripped the country and the region.

Leading the cast is the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, and Syria’s first lady, Asma al-Assad, but star billing has so far been taken by the president’s first cousin, Rami Makhlouf, who last week took to Facebook to do the unthinkable: air the normally inscrutable family’s dirty laundry.

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Alicia Levine, BNY Mellon chief investment strategist, and David Rolfe, Wedgewood Partners CIO, join 'Power Lunch' to discuss the state of the markets as stocks continue to rally on optimism the economy will open.

Parsley Energy CEO Matt Gallagher joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss Parsley Energy's positive quarterly earnings despite the Covid-19 pandemic. He also speaks on the company's production and the state of the oil industry.

Brent Beardall, WaFd Bank CEO, joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss the state of the Paycheck Protection Program and how many PPP loans the bank has processed.

• Statement dismisses Rangers complaints as ‘self-serving’
• Proposals for three-tier league system are abandoned

Directors of the Scottish Professional Football League have snapped back at allegations raised in a dossier issued by Rangers and urged clubs not to back calls for an independent investigation into the handling of a vote to abandon this season.

Rangers, who last month called for the suspension of the SPFL’s chief executive and legal adviser, distributed an extensive document to fellow league members on Thursday as they seek to win the 75% support needed at Tuesday’s extraordinary general meeting to trigger an inquiry. Rangers raised a series of questions over the conduct and governance of the SPFL, whose board was firm in its recommendation the season vote should pass.

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In an empty stadium with strict coronavirus protocols enforced, probably the first spit- and snot-free match in football history drew legions of online fans to South Korea

So football is back. Jeonbuk Motors and Suwon Bluewings opened the coronavirus-delayed K-League season in an empty stadium in the south-west city of Jeonju on Friday evening and for legions of online fans around the world, starved of football by the pandemic, the exertions were a sporting balm. It is fair to say that no football match played on South Korean soil had attracted this level of international interest since the 2002 World Cup finals.

With the exceptions of Belarus, Burundi, Tajikistan and Nicaragua, the global game has been at a virtual standstill, presenting the K-League with an opportunity to fill the hole left by the postponement or cancellation of all other major competitions.

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American soul singer who enjoyed huge success with hits such as Lean on Me and Ain’t No Sunshine

The career of Bill Withers, who has died aged 81 of heart complications, followed an unusual trajectory. He did not try to enter the music industry until after he had spent nine years in the US Navy, leaving the service in 1965 and moving to Los Angeles two years later. By the time he released his debut album, Just As I Am, in 1971 he was 33, an age at which many pop careers have already been and gone.

But Withers made up for lost time. His album was packed with memorable songs, including Harlem and Grandma’s Hands, and entered the US Top 40. Ain’t No Sunshine, his first single, reached No 3 and became one of the landmark songs in his career, despite lasting a scant two minutes. Inspired by Blake Edwards’ gruelling 1962 film about alcoholism, Days of Wine and Roses, it has become an enduring anthem of loneliness and heartbreak.

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Elizabeth Sankey’s engaging documentary reclaims the genre from snooty cinephiles – and proudly pronounces When Harry Met Sally a masterpiece

With affection and brio, Elizabeth Sankey reclaims the genre of romantic comedy in this watchable documentary; that is, she reclaims it from the gendered snobbery of white, male, middle-aged reviewers who fall over themselves to praise horror movies or thrillers or superhero films but turn their noses up at romcom. (If La La Land had been marketed as a romcom, wonders Sankey, would it have got the same Oscars and saucer-eyed critical praise?)

Now, I’m putting my hands up here, although I still can’t handle Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday (2006), and I still worry that romcom tends to be all rom and no com, a conservative genre that often dislikes the subversion of comedy. I absolutely agreed with Sankey’s masterpiece rating for When Harry Met Sally … (1989) – what person of taste and judgment wouldn’t? – and I enjoyed her praise for While You Were Sleeping (1995), which she discreetly juxtaposes with the comparably themed The Big Sick (2017). But could it be that there is a kind of dual response going on here – straightforward reverence for a small number of romcom greats and a kind of guilty-pleasure celebration for the stratum of standard-issue romcom product below that, which maybe isn’t all that great but nonetheless foregrounds women’s experiences in the way no other genre does?

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Coming live from Melbourne, London and Huddersfield, the Last Leg presents its take on the week’s events. Plus: VE Day 75: An Evening Celebration

The lighthearted TV responses to lockdown have been abundant so far, from video-linked episodes of Have I Got News For You to Matt Lucas’s sketches and Grayson Perry’s Art Club. Yet, none have quite managed to capture the mix of anxiety, uncertainty and unexpected humour many of us have been experiencing – which is where the Last Leg comics come in. Live from Melbourne, London and Huddersfield, the trio will present their typically incisive take on the week’s events. Ammar Kalia

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I have always maintained a professional relationship with my two female lodgers but spending more time together recently led to a lapse in judgment

I share my house with two female lodgers. We’re all single at the moment but we have always maintained a professional relationship with each other. In the current circumstances, we are obviously spending more time together. The other week, the inevitable happened. After a few drinks, I ended up getting intimate with one of them on the sofa. The following day, she didn’t bat an eyelid but we agreed to put it down to too many beers.

The thing is, I now see her in a new light. She is 20 years younger than me and I find her sexually attractive. I’m struggling to keep that line drawn. We still have a great relationship, sharing drinks and a chinwag, but I feel different. Should I tell her how I feel and run the risk of everything going pear-shaped?

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GSTR_3B&1 AUTO CALCULATION version 3.0 w.e.f.09.10.2019 with 10 % celing on ITC with GSTR-2A and new set-off rules. I first of all thanks to all users of my previous utilities, Some of people directly approach me for appreciation by both the means of valuable words and money value Addition in the Utility 1)Party wise Anex in GSTR_1 anex Sheet 2)Added a sheet for capture the data for purchase from URD by Sheet Purchase others 3)New set off Rule implemented w.e.f 01.02.2019 4)Unique party list for both sales and purchase parties 5)Comparision sheet between book and GSTR-2A 6)Payment details added for people those wanted to appreciate my efforts by monetary benefit some more option are under progress i will make it available in my future utility keep following #xls please note in the utility the 10 % celing not concidered a another way used to avoid unnecessary computation if you want utility with only considering 10 % ceiling you can get by contacting ram.moorthy34@gmail.com or whatsup 9626787853

Tax Connect (With GST) - 262nd Issue

Shubham Malhotara, AIR-1 IPC Nov18 Exams in an Exclusive Talk with CAclubindia

Today Kevin’s game, Starcom: Nexus, releases in Early Access on Steam. It’s a thing of beauty, and also a lot of fun. If you like games that take you into outer space where you get to explore mysterious worlds, build a powerful ship, and explode bad guys, you should buy it, and play it, and let your gamer friends know about it. Yes, I’m biased, but reviewers and streamers  - who are not his spouse  - also love it :o). (FYI those last two links go to youtube streaming vids.)

***

Conversation at the dinner table:

Kevin: How was your day?

Me: Okay, I guess. I still can’t figure out how to get this girl to accidentally set her house on fire, then cause an explosion and get stuck in a window grille.

Kevin: I believe in you.

Me: Thank you. How was your day?

Kevin: Okay. When my enemy ships get within a certain distance of each other, they spontaneously explode.

Me: Oh!

Kevin: It’s not supposed to happen. It’s a bug.

Me: Oh.

Kevin: I can’t figure it out.

Me: I believe in you!

***


There are a lot of similarities between the work Kevin and I do. We both create complicated worlds with characters and plots. We’re both entertainers.

Meet your commander.

We have some processes in common: for example, we both study the books/games we love, then try to learn from them. We both think about the things we don’t like in other books/games, then try to come up with alternatives we prefer. We both know how to wear the creator hat; then switch to the reader/gamer hat, reading/playing our own project with a critical eye; then go back to the creator hat to fix what isn’t working. We’re both extremely familiar with the phenomenon wherein you change one little thing, then a ripple effect passes through the entire work, complicating/breaking things in ways you didn’t anticipate.

Meet the Ulooquo, an underwater alien race.

We can also get similarly overwhelmed by our own projects. I’ve talked a lot on the blog about how a book has many parts, and writing a book involves many jobs. Well, a game has SO many parts. It has music and art, visual effects, numerous interfaces, plot and character, mysteries and rewards. It must be able to support and absorb the choices of individual gamers, over which the creator has no control. It has SO many (literally) moving parts!



We also both work by ourselves for years on self-directed projects… then put our creations out into the world, hoping they’ll find the people who will love them.

These similarities are deep. They help us to understand each other’s frustrations and joys, and support each other meaningfully. This is awesome. However, I want to talk a little bit about the differences, which are many.

For example, in my writing career, I have an agent. She connects me to an editor who helps me craft the right words. Then, my editor works with my publisher to create a beautiful physical book, publicize and market that book, and sell that book for me.

An indie game developer, on the other hand, does everything himself, in an extremely saturated market with a lot of roadblocks. He can hire other people to help. Kevin hired a composer and an artist, to help him with his music and his characters (like the Commander and the Ulooquo above). He hired a marketing consultant to do a few things too. But he worked closely with those people, because he knew exactly what he wanted. And everything else has been the work of his own hands. He’s done SO much marketing and publicity work on his own that’s made me appreciate my own marketing and publicity departments even more than I did before. Self-promotion in a saturated market is really, really hard. It’s also stressful for a guy who happens to be humble and was raised with the good-old New England ethos of not bragging about himself :o).

Here’s another big difference: Kevin can release his game while it’s still in production, then use the feedback from early players to shape it and make it better. He can write code into the game that allows him to see how long players play; where they decide to drop out of the game; which options are being chosen more often than others. (He receives this information anonymously, in case you’re starting to worry that he can actually tell what you’re doing inside his game!) As a writer, I definitely don’t know where someone decides to abandon my book. Nor do I want to know, because once people are reading my book, it’s final! If everyone is bailing at a certain point, there’s nothing I can do about it. The words in my book are not going to change. Kevin’s game is more of a living, growing creature, even after it releases, and based on player reactions.

Another big difference is that while I am a wordsmith, Kevin is a programmer. A lot of the time, when I step into his office, he’s working with programming language on his many screens, and I don’t understand the smallest bit of it. My readers read my actual words. His gamers play a game built on a framework of programming that looks and feels very different from the actual game. He also works with a lot of complicated software (like, for 3D modeling) and does a lot of math. He uses trigonometry to [I just asked him to explain it and he said something about spaceships shooting at each other, vectors, and cosines. ???]. I can come home and tell him practically everything I struggled with at work that day. A lot of what he does is too technical for me to understand—though he is really good at creating analogies and explaining things to me when I ask (and when I'm not rushing to finish a blog post!).

Another difference is that he is a visual artist. For example, he created Entarq's Citadel below, which is one of the worlds his gamers get to explore.


Here's another.


Another difference:  I can do my work anywhere. All I need is my notebook and a pen. Kevin needs his fancy computer and his big monitors. So he works from home. Home office and self-employed means he’s working most of the time. Most mornings, he’s working by the time I get out of bed. By the time I leave for my office, he’s put hours in. I come home and he’s making me dinner; after dinner, he works for a few more hours. I go away on trips without him; he works while I’m gone! I always thought I worked really hard. I have a new standard now.

And now his work has created this beautiful, fun game that’s getting really positive attention from gamers and streamers :o). Today, you can buy it in Early Access, and become one of the players who contributes to what it will ultimately become.

And that's my little explanation of what it's like to live with an indie game developer. Check out the links if you’re interested! The trailer is below.

Q&A with Sacha Dhawan!

If you enjoy wargames that use six-sided dice, our Army Men D6 Dice Set brings you a dozen dice decorated with stars instead of pips on the 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 sides. The "1" facing on each die features an image of a plastic toy army man, with a total of six different designs packed into the set . . . one each in two different colors.

Need even more dice? They're ready to report for duty. The Army Men D6 Dice Platoon is loaded with 36 dice – perfect for your next Axis & Allies game.

BONUS: Now you can download the free rules for a two-player game using these dice!

– Phil Reed

Warehouse 23 News: When In Doubt, Add Dinosaurs

Think of a GURPS game you might be tempted to enjoy. Any GURPS game. Wouldn't it be better with dinosaurs? No doubt your answers range from "yes" to "Heck, yes!!!" Give in to the terrifying temptation with GURPS Classic: Dinosaurs. It's a download away thanks to Warehouse 23!

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook!

This post is made possible by the support of La Maison du Coco. More info below! I am dedicating this […]

The post Red Lentil Curry with Cauliflower and Coconut Chips Recipe appeared first on Chocolate & Zucchini.

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook!

Among the French dishes traditional served at Easter, you’ll find tourte pascale* and pâté de Pâques, French Easter pies enclosed […]

The post French Easter Pie with Spinach and Goat Cheese Recipe appeared first on Chocolate & Zucchini.

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook!

Do you know what Otium means? Otium is the Latin word for virtuous leisure, a time free of obligation that […]

The post Otium Salad with Roasted Radishes and Shaved Asparagus Recipe appeared first on Chocolate & Zucchini.

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook!

For the past couple of months, my weekly vegetable allotment has included big bags of salad greens, oftentimes the scratchy […]

The post Green Quiche with Walnuts Recipe appeared first on Chocolate & Zucchini.

We get an update from two doctors treating patients with the Navajo Nation, the largest Indigenous reservation in the country, which has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Michelle Tom is a member of the Navajo Nation and a family physician treating COVID-19 patients at the Winslow Indian Health Care Center and Little Colorado Medical Center in northern Arizona near the Navajo reservation. In Gallup, New Mexico, Dr. Sriram Shamasunder is leading a medical volunteer group of 21 nurses and doctors from the University of California, San Francisco as part of the HEAL Initiative. He says the coronavirus hit harder on the Navajo Nation due to a "trajectory of an underfunded health system," and notes the Indian Health Service is funded at one-third the rate per capita as Medicare. "The level of inequity that you're seeing … it's part of this pattern."

We go to Moscow for an update on the pandemic in Russia, where the coronavirus is spreading rapidly, with at least 10,000 new cases a day and the second-highest infection rate in the world, and more than 100 medical workers have died fighting the virus, and many have reported lack of personal protective equipment. Meanwhile, three Russian healthcare workers mysteriously fell from hospital windows over the past two weeks. Two died, and the one who is hospitalized had posted a video online to note the lack of medical equipment and said he had to keep working despite testing positive. We speak with Joshua Yaffa, Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker magazine.

The two white men caught on camera shooting and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African American man, were arrested and charged Thursday with murder. The arrests came two days after video of the attack in February was shared with the public, sparking widespread outrage. Today would have been Arbery's 26th birthday. We speak with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the Arbery family and formerly represented Trayvon Martin.

Huawei Matepad T8 has been launched in Romania along with the Huawei Y5P and the Huawei Y6P phones. The tablet is available in a single Deepsea Blue color and traditional themed design. The tablet has a thick bezel around

Microsoft launched the Surface Laptop 3 back in October 2019. Since purchasing and using the new device, users have been reporting cracks appearing on the laptop screen, even without causing any physical damage to the device itself. While the reason is

Google said it will introduce the flexibility to make group calls, in a few days through Google Duo for web as a preview in Chrome. To avoid having to rely on contact numbers only, the web version will allow users to

The delay in retrospective amendment regarding computation of interest liability under GST regime has led to flood of writ petitions in High Courts seeking relief from recovery proceedings initiated by the government. The revenue authorities have consistently held that interest liability gets automa

So, amid the furor of preparing for a book launch, I’ve had to divert time to another matter. I found out belatedly that The Obelisk Gate had been nominated for the Dragon Awards, basically when I started to hear murmurs that the awards were especially problematic this year. I went to go see what the […]

Originally posted on - blogs by NPG staff

My heart skips a beat thinking of Thursday. That’s the day my scheduled week-long duty starts in COVID-19 wards and intensive care units (ICU) every fortnight.  Read more

Millions of us are in confinement around the world – all searching for activities to occupy us and cheer us up. Every day since mid-March, French DJ and producer Bob Sinclar has been gathering hundreds of thousands of people for one hour of uplifting funk via Facebook and Instagram. He spoke to Eve Jackson about keeping the groove going in confinement.

Boko Haram fighters clashed with government forces on Sunday in Diffa, the largest city in southwestern Niger, in what the jihadists said was a successful attack on a military camp.   

Please accept this as an apology, of sorts.

Interview with Rani Baker, Goon Lurker and Internet Hero.

There we both were, opting to let the free market do what it does best — provide, devoid of scruples, even the most reprehensible and insane services to the extravagantly wealthy.

A journey to stop a bully has unintended emotional consequences.

Finally you know the whole story.

My recent trip to the hospital led me to become convinced that reversing the five stages of death has magically beneficial properties.

With dozens of stodgy old people collectively using new meeting technology to hold the NFL draft virtually, there will almost definitely be some crazy shenanigans like the ones described in this article.