Flamboyant singer-instrumentalist Little Richard, whose high-voltage, keyboard-shattering R&B singles supplied lift-off for the ’50s rock ‘n’ roll revolution, has died. The musician, whose birth name was Richard Penniman, was 87, although some sources say he was older. His death was confirmed by his son, Danny Jones Penniman, who told the New York Times the cause […]

From Berlin to Bogotá there are new footpaths and bike lanes – but not in London

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A growing number of cities around the world are temporarily reallocating road space from cars to people on foot and on cycles to keep key workers moving and residents in coronavirus lockdown healthy and active while socially distancing.

Limited urban park space and leisure trails are under increasing pressure, with many closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, further limiting urban dwellers’ access to outdoor space. While traffic has dropped around the world, and with it nitrogen dioxide levels, there are widespread concerns over a rise in speeding drivers endangering those walking and cycling.

When life is necessarily small, the more negative feelings we’ve managed to keep in abeyance can loom large, says Annalisa Barbieri

I had adjusted to living alone after I was widowed six years ago, and since the lockdown friends have telephoned frequently and I chat to neighbours at a distance.

Although I feel I am one of the lucky ones and should be fine, I miss, above all, hugs and physical closeness. I have also started to resent people with partners, children or cuddly pets (which I have not done before).

Jill Wallis says she has never had so much contact with family and friends as she has had since the lockdown began

You have published many articles about the challenges of isolation, most recently your long read (Patterns of pain: what Covid-19 can teach us about how to be human, 7 May). But there is one interesting outcome you may not have considered.

Many of those of us who always live alone are finding we are much more in contact with loved ones than previously. I’ve lived alone since being widowed 16 years ago, and I’ve never had as much contact with my family and even my friends than I’ve had since the lockdown began.

Gov. Tim Walz is hesitant to reopen businesses until his state's daily testing rate dramatically increases. "You can't flip it like a switch and say you're open if you don't have testing," he says.

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Coping with iffy audio quality, occasional feedback loops, new technology and MPs who speak too quickly has resulted in a steep increase in interpreters reporting workplace injuries, according to the union that represents some 70 accredited interpreters who translate English into French and vice versa.

Tracy Brabin has said she will have to change her phone number after it was inadvertently shown on screen while she was being interviewd on ITV's This Morning.

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE Fiancee Carrie Symonds said: "There were times last week that were very dark indeed"

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MPs have approved hybrid proceedings in the House of Commons with some MPs set to attend via video link amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Follow our live Covid-19 updates HERE

A row has broken out over Boris Johnson's chief adviser Dominic Cummings attending meetings of the senior scientists advising the Government on the coronavirus outbreak.

The investigation into bullying accusations against Priti Patel must be released "as soon as possible", Labour has demanded.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will hold virtual meetings with members of the public over Zoom as he tries to resuscitate the party after its historic electoral defeat.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson led the sixth national applause for frontline workers as his fiancee Carrie Symonds tweeted she had "another wonderful reason to thank the NHS this week too".

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Matt Hancock has slammed Professor Neil Ferguson for his "extraordinary" breach of coronavirus lockdown rules, adding he was left "speechless" by his actions.

When I worked as a TV reporter covering health and science, I would often be recognized in public places. For the most part, the interactions were brief hellos or compliments. Two periods of time stand out when significant numbers of those who approached me were seeking detailed information: the earliest days of the pandemic that became HIV/AIDS and during the anthrax attacks shortly following 9/11. Clearly people feared for their own safety and felt their usual sources of information were not offering them satisfaction. Citizens’ motivation to seek advice when they feel they aren’t getting it from official sources is a strong indication that risk communication is doing a substandard job. It’s significant that one occurred in the pre-Internet era and one after. We can’t blame a public feeling misinformed solely on the noise of the digital age.

America is now opening up from COVID-19 lockdown with different rules in different places. In many parts of the country, people have been demonstrating, even rioting, for restrictions to be lifted sooner. Others are terrified of loosening the restrictions because they see COVID-19 cases and deaths still rising daily. The officials deciding what to open, and when, seldom offer thoughtful rationales. Clearly, risk communication about COVID-19 is failing with potentially dire consequences.

A big part of maintaining credibility is to admit to uncertainty—something politicians are loath to do.

Peter Sandman is a foremost expert on risk communication. A former professor at Rutgers University, he was a top consultant with the Centers for Disease Control in designing crisis and emergency risk-communication, a field of study that combines public health with psychology. Sandman is known for the formula Risk = Hazard + Outrage. His goal is to create better communication about risk, allowing people to assess hazards and not get caught up in outrage at politicians, public health officials, or the media. Today, Sandman is a risk consultant, teamed with his wife, Jody Lanard, a pediatrician and psychiatrist. Lanard wrote the first draft of the World Health Organization’s Outbreak Communications Guidelines. “Jody and Peter are seen as the umpires to judge the gold standard of risk communications,” said Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Sandman and Lanard have posted a guide for effective COVID-19 communication on the center’s website.

I reached out to Sandman to expand on their advice. We communicated through email.

Sandman began by saying he understood the protests around the country about the lockdown. “It’s very hard to warn people to abide by social-distancing measures when they’re so outraged that they want to kill somebody and trust absolutely nothing people say,” he told me. “COVID-19 outrage taps into preexisting grievances and ideologies. It’s not just about COVID-19 policies. It’s about freedom, equality, too much or too little government. It’s about the arrogance of egghead experts, left versus right, globalism versus nationalism versus federalism. And it’s endlessly, pointlessly about Donald Trump.”

Since the crisis began, Sandman has isolated three categories of grievance. He spelled them out for me, assuming the voices of the outraged:

• “In parts of the country, the response to COVID-19 was delayed and weak; officials unwisely prioritized ‘allaying panic’ instead of allaying the spread of the virus; lockdown then became necessary, not because it was inevitable but because our leaders had screwed up; and now we’re very worried about coming out of lockdown prematurely or chaotically, mishandling the next phase of the pandemic as badly as we handled the first phase.”

• “In parts of the country, the response to COVID-19 was excessive—as if the big cities on the two coasts were the whole country and flyover America didn’t need or didn’t deserve a separate set of policies. There are countless rural counties with zero confirmed cases. Much of the U.S. public-health profession assumes and even asserts without building an evidence-based case that these places, too, needed to be locked down and now need to reopen carefully, cautiously, slowly, and not until they have lots of testing and contact-tracing capacity. How dare they destroy our economy (too) just because of their mishandled outbreak!”

• “Once again the powers-that-be have done more to protect other people’s health than to protect my health. And once again the powers-that-be have done more to protect other people’s economic welfare than to protect my economic welfare!” (These claims can be made with considerable truth by healthcare workers; essential workers in low-income, high-touch occupations; residents of nursing homes; African-Americans; renters who risk eviction; the retired whose savings are threatened; and others.)

In their article for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Sandman and Lanard point out that coping with a pandemic requires a thorough plan of communication. This is particularly important as the crisis is likely to enter a second wave of infection, when it could be more devastating. The plan starts with six core principles: 1) Don’t over-reassure, 2) Proclaim uncertainty, 3) Validate emotions—your audience’s and your own, 4) Give people things to do, 5) Admit and apologize for errors, and 6) Share dilemmas. To achieve the first three core principles, officials must immediately share what they know, even if the information may be incomplete. If officials share good news, they must be careful not to make it too hopeful. Over-reassurance is one of the biggest dangers in crisis communication. Sandman and Lanard suggest officials say things like, “Even though the number of new confirmed cases went down yesterday, I don’t want to put too much faith in one day’s good news.” 

Sandman and Lanard say a big part of maintaining credibility is to admit to uncertainty—something politicians are loath to do. They caution against invoking “science” as a sole reason for action, as science in the midst of a crisis is “incremental, fallible, and still in its infancy.” Expressing empathy, provided it’s genuine, is important, Sandman and Lanard say. It makes the bearer more human and believable. A major tool of empathy is to acknowledge the public’s fear as well as your own. There is good reason to be terrified about this virus and its consequences on society. It’s not something to hide.

Sandman and Lanard say current grievances with politicians, health officials, and the media, about how the crisis has been portrayed, have indeed been contradictory. But that makes them no less valid. Denying the contradictions only amplifies divisions in the public and accelerates the outrage, possibly beyond control. They strongly emphasize one piece of advice. “Before we can share the dilemma of how best to manage any loosening of the lockdown, we must decisively—and apologetically—disabuse the public of the myth that, barring a miracle, the COVID-19 pandemic can possibly be nearing its end in the next few months.”

Robert Bazell is an adjunct professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale. For 38 years, he was chief science correspondent for NBC News.

Three doctors in Russia have fallen out of hospital windows during the coronavirus pandemic. Two of them died, and the third one is in serious condition.

Most schools in the country are closed for the rest of the school year. What steps need to be taken for them to be ready to welcome students back in the fall?

Thousands of people have volunteered to be exposed to coronavirus if it means a vaccine can be developed more quickly. Should we let them?

Despite his reputation as a Trump loyalist, Rep. John Ratcliffe repeatedly pledged that he would, if confirmed as the next leader of the U.S. intelligence community, seek out and deliver the unvarnished truth on a range of national security issues.

“Recognize that there are going to be social distancing practices at the airport. So there’s no running to the gate at the last minute,” said Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA in an interview with Yahoo News.

As the NHL looks for ways to salvage its regular season that was suspended by the COVID-19 pandemic, one option on the table is for a select group of so-called hub cities to host all the games. Three Canadian cities have expressed interest in the role.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the most famous goal in NHL History, Rob Pizzo breaks down why it is still being talked about today.

Stephanie Labbé, goalkeeper for the Canada's soccer team, and her long-time girlfriend Georgia Simmerling, a vital member for Canada's team pursuit in track cycling, have already qualified for the Tokyo Games. But the COVID-19 lockdown measures have rocked them. This Olympic couple had planned to retire. Now, instead of facing four months until retirement they face 16 months.

An experiment on peer reviewers at a psychology conference suggests a positive result premium, which could drive publication bias.

If both can make a dough rise, why does your dough recipe call for both?

Archaeologists have discovered methods that kept food fresh long before refrigeration.

The National Capital Commission has backed down from a decision to install signs to discourage people from taking pictures or – even stopping to admire – the Canadian Tulip Festival blooms. “Dear all: our bad!” the NCC tweeted Friday night after the move attracted controversy — and the ire of Mayor Jim Watson. The signs […]

And let's move beyond the tiresome ideological battle lines of “private bad, public good.” It's not that simple.

It’s chilly out there this morning. The temperature at 7 a.m. Saturday morning sat at -3 C. Making it feel more like March than May. Clouds shouldroll in later this morning, bringing a 40 per cent chance of flurries, the high reaching only 4 C. Yep, more like March than May. The wind kicks up […]

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A new meme imagines a walking down all sorts of aisles after coronavirus-related lockdowns end

The popular battle royale video game category led by 'Fortnite' has some company: the free 'Call of Duty: Warzone' for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PCs

Nintendo says it is working with public health authorities after one of their employees tested positive for the coronavirus.