As Minnesota Gov. Walz weighs his decision on when to let nonessential businesses reopen, he's facing a lot of pressure from a frustrated workforce, especially from small business owners who are trying to stay afloat during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak. "The frustrations that they have are real. These are businesses that, they may have been in families for generations or they built up," the Democratic governor says in an interview with Morning Edition . The state is under a stay-at-home order until at least May 18 . In reopening the economy, he says, businesses will face another challenge: consumer confidence. Walz worries that — even with stay-at-home orders lifted — many consumers will be skittish about reengaging with businesses until they feel safe. Walz says many businesses should remain closed until the state ramps up its testing capacity. Achieving that goal will help contain the virus's spread, as well as bolster the public's confidence, he says.

Updated at 4:02 p.m. ET The White House on Friday confirmed a second case of coronavirus this week, now in Vice President Pence's office, as both the president and his No. 2 have recently begun traveling again. Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller tested positive for the virus on Friday, after having tested negative Thursday. President Trump told reporters Friday that Miller hasn't come into contact with him but has "spent some time" with the vice president. "She is a wonderful young woman, Katie," he said. "She tested very good for a long period of time. And then all of a sudden today she tested positive." "So, she tested positive out of the blue," he continued. "This is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily, right, the tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it's good and then something happens and then all of a sudden, she was tested very recently and tested negative." The discovery caused Pence's departure to Iowa on Friday morning to be delayed by

Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, answers questions about access to testing for COVID-19, false-negative results and the challenges of mass testing.

Protests over stay-at-home orders because of COVID-19 have become more common around the country. In California, a surprising group is behind some of them: those who oppose mandatory vaccinations. On Thursday, a mash-up of people mingled on the sidewalk in front of California's state Capitol in Sacramento. There were Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats and waving American flags. There were Christians, singing along to religious rock songs and raising their hands in prayer. The event's MC. urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to tune into their event. "Everybody up at the Capitol, tell Gavin Newsom [to tune in to] 107.9 FM, if he wants to hear what we have to say," the MC told the crowd over loudspeakers. "It could be kind of good for him!" There were also mothers with their children at the rally. Many people were not wearing face masks or observing social distancing protocols. They'd all come out to protest California's stay-at-home order, put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19. This week's

The Georgia Department of Public Health reached its goal of testing 100,000 individuals in 10 days, but the state is still behind on mass testing.

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319876 JohnC - Oh Sunrise test mix 2

As humans, we like to categorize, and with services like Ancestry.com and 23 and Me, we have new ways to figure out where we fit and where we don’t. But what can we really find out that we don’t already know? In this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr....

The 2018-2019 school year saw allegations of cheating in college admissions in the “Operation Varsity Blues” case. Rising tuition costs and student debt levels have the attention of several 2020 presidential hopefuls. In this episode of the KUT podcast “Higher Ed,” KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss the state of...

wow #epicfireworks by EpicFireworks (cc by)

Oooh, shiny: the week 3 results of your January 2020 Best Post Contest have been tabulated!

by Edna Winti (cc by)

Be Bedazzled!: The bounty of the best continues with Week 4 results of the January 2020 Best Post Contest.

7 Virtual Jazz Club continues its worldwide search for emerging and underrecognized creative musicians of all ages and backgrounds. This Year's Categories Under 25 Amateurs and Pros To enter the contest, soloists and groups pay a small registration fee and submit a video (maximum seven minutes) of their ...

I have a very large amount of papers that need to be counted, to the extent that doing it by hand will take dozens of hours. I have considered doing it by weight with an accurate scale, but I require a lot of accuracy, and some of the groupings of papers need to be separated, so I need to work in smaller batches. I was thinking of using a printer for this purpose - load up as much as it can hold, then "print" blank pages in groupings of 50 for example.

For this purpose, I can probably just get a used printer on ebay (I literally don't need it to even be able to print, just run through a center number of pages). However, I don't know what parameter I'm trying to optimize for. Typically, printers advertise a certain number of pages per minute. However, I'm not going to print anything on any of the pages, so it should run faster than this speed. How can I analyze the rate at which different printers will feed me blank paper (if such a performance characteristic exists)?

My city (a close-in Boston suburb) is offering COVID-19 tests (viral, not antibody) to all residents, regardless of symptoms. I have no symptoms and probably lower-than-average risk of exposure but I'm considering getting tested. In a perfect-except-for-coronavirus world, who would be getting tested, and how often?

Presumably if my city Board of Health is offering these tests, they want residents to be taking them - our infection rate is pretty high. That said, I am probably at low risk of exposure relative to the average resident of my city. We're two-person household with no one working outside the home; I go out to buy food about once a week and take my spouse to medical appointments about every other week. Our city has a substantial working-class and immigrant population who are living/working in more dangerous conditions. Some of our neighboring cities/towns have even much higher rates of infection but we live on the other side of town from those communities and don't do our shopping there.

If I call and I'm able to get an appointment right away I guess I won't worry about it but if there's a backlog I'm not sure whether *I* ought to be getting tested. Is this the kind of broad testing that needs to happen to get positive test rates down to a manageable level, or should I skip getting tested for now and leave my slot and swab available for my higher-risk neighbors who are living in more crowded households and/or working outside their homes? I have basically zero concern that I'm actually infected, though of course if I'm infected and asymptomatic that would be really important to know. My husband tested negative about a month ago and has had no COVID-19 symptoms and minimal opportunities for exposure since - would it make sense for him to be tested?

Personal considerations aside, I'm mostly curious about what an optimal testing strategy (in the absence of test shortages) looks like, and given that the availability and accessibility of tests has changed so much over the past couple of months it's hard to get a straight answer about this. Articles, tweet-threads, etc. are all welcome on this topic!

A trio of exploratory and quick-witted improvisers unite for an exciting and stimulating outing on The Swiftest Traveler. Norwegian reedman Torben Snekkestad and Catalan pianist Agusti Fernandez are comrades of bassist Barry Guy in his The Blue Shroud Band and also the 2020 edition of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra... [ read more ]

Samples From Mars has released MPC2000 Snacks From Mars, a freely downloadable sample pack containing vinyl and drum machine sounds recorded and processed through the MPC2000XL hardware sampler. The sample pack contains six pre-mapped drum kits of 16 hits each (96 samples in total), along with 29 grooves in MIDI format. The clipped, filtered and [...]

View post: MPC2000 Snacks From Mars – FREE Samples & Song Contest

Fast täglich gibt es neue Erkenntnisse zum Coronavirus. Wie sinnvoll ist die 50er-Obergrenze der Lockerungsmaßnahmen? Wie funktionieren Antikörpertests? Wann kommt die Tracing-App? Ein Überblick von Dominik Lauck.

Tausende Menschen haben in mehreren deutschen Städten gegen die Einschränkungen zur Eindämmung der Corona-Pandemie demonstriert. Einer der Schwerpunkte war Stuttgart. Auch in Berlin, München und Frankfurt gab es Proteste.

The Cleveland High grad will keep his college eligibility.

WASHINGTON — A top aide to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for coronavirus on Friday, making her the second known person working at the White House to contract the illness in the past two days, according to several sources familiar with the situation. Katie Miller, the vice president’s press secretary, was notified Friday about […]

Nintendo of America has confirmed that an employee from its Redmond-based studio in Washington has tested positive for coronavirus. All other employees who had contact with them are now in self-quarantine even if asymptomatic, Nintendo wrote in a statement sent to The Washington Post. Upon learning the diagnosis, Nintendo of America alerted the public health […]

The Cleveland High grad will keep his college eligibility.

PICURIS PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — On a dusty plaza in a Native American village that dates back nearly a millennium, a steady trickle of vehicles inched through a pop-up coronavirus testing site. From the bed of a pickup truck and backseats of cars, wide-eyed children stared from behind hand-sewn masks and then sobbed as testing […]

U.S. regulators have approved a new type of coronavirus test that administration officials have promoted as a key to opening up the country. The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday announced emergency authorization for antigen tests developed by Quidel Corp. of San Diego. The test can rapidly detect fragments of virus proteins in samples collected […]

The onset of the coronavirus and the subsequent classification of many of these workers as "essential" have heightened some existing tensions. Workers have accused companies of being slow to provide protective gear and implement precautions, something that may put them in danger.

With a fall application, your soil should be at the right level by the beginning of next season.

Will private equity boost the Northwest's most important shipbuilder or look for a fast buck? Behind the question is the long and dangerous decline of a vital industry.

The weekend attack on critical oil facilities rattled the market. No wonder: Spikes in petroleum prices are closely associated with recessions.

What used to be an annual May Day march for workers’ and immigration rights has taken on a different look this year due to coronavirus stay-at-home restrictions. This year, the march from Judkins Park to downtown Seattle has been canceled. Instead, march sponsors El Comité and the May 1st Action Coalition have scheduled a vehicle […]

More than 750 immigration detainees at more than 40 detention facilities around the country have tested positive for the disease, a number that activists say may be an undercount given a paucity of testing at some facilities.

Here are selected photographs as the nation and the world deal with a COVID-19 pandemic that has affected nearly every corner of the planet.

Member worked March 7 match against Columbus at CenturyLink Field. Team says no other cases within Sounders FC have been identified.

Hanauer, whose club won the 2019 MLS Cup, said all ideas are being considered by MLS owners in order to resume play.

This soup has a highly drinkable broth that is complex enough to satisfy, yet light enough to maintain your enthusiasm to eat Another Thing Today.

PICURIS PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — On a dusty plaza in a Native American village that dates back nearly a millennium, a steady trickle of vehicles inched through a pop-up coronavirus testing site. From the bed of a pickup truck and backseats of cars, wide-eyed children stared from behind hand-sewn masks and then sobbed as testing […]

Here are selected photographs as the nation and the world deal with a COVID-19 pandemic that has affected nearly every corner of the planet.

PICURIS PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — On a dusty plaza in a Native American village that dates back nearly a millennium, a steady trickle of vehicles inched through a pop-up coronavirus testing site. From the bed of a pickup truck and backseats of cars, wide-eyed children stared from behind hand-sewn masks and then sobbed as testing […]

U.S. regulators have approved a new type of coronavirus test that administration officials have promoted as a key to opening up the country. The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday announced emergency authorization for antigen tests developed by Quidel Corp. of San Diego. The test can rapidly detect fragments of virus proteins in samples collected […]

The Pentagon has asked a federal court to give it 120 days to “reconsider certain aspects” of a controversial decision to award an important cloud computing contract known as JEDI to Microsoft, according to a court document made public Thursday. Amazon is suing the Defense Department over the decision, which it claims fell in Microsoft’s […]

There aren’t any red carpets right now, no premieres, no movies at the theater — so let’s take a stroll back through Sundays Best past, shall we?

Plenty of people don't like how government is controlling their lives. Polls show they are not the majority, but the reasons for their protests go beyond the images that often grab attention.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest challenge for Seattle’s independent record stores like Easy Street, but these titans of vinyl continue to rise to the occasion.

MIAMI (AP) — Politicians, players and owners are trying to figure out a way to get baseball, basketball and hockey going again, not only for economic reasons but as a welcome diversion for a social distancing nation facing uncertain times. But to do so would require commandeering thousands of test kits each week for millionaire […]

The Latest on the effects of the new coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world: ___ Cycling’s European Road Championships have been postponed until next year amid the coronavirus pandemic. The championships were scheduled to take place Sept. 9-13 in Trentino, Italy, but the European Cycling Union says the “uncertainty of the current health crisis” […]

THE new year is a little over a month away. Much happened in 2016 that is worth reflection as we look forward and think about what could happen next year. What do you hope to see happen in 2017? Will the state fully fund basic education? Which campaign promises will President-elect Donald Trump keep or […]

The initial days of the Boeing experiment as 27,000 workers are asked to return won't be easy to assess, because a significant number of employees chose to stay home this week.

PICURIS PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — On a dusty plaza in a Native American village that dates back nearly a millennium, a steady trickle of vehicles inched through a pop-up coronavirus testing site. From the bed of a pickup truck and backseats of cars, wide-eyed children stared from behind hand-sewn masks and then sobbed as testing […]