Scotland will not adopt the Prime Minister's new coronavirus slogan which drops the 'stay at home' message, Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.

Grief

What if the lockdown was lifted and nobody came? A lot of people seem quite happy with life under Covid, especially educated middle-class people on social media who are happily swapping Spotify playlists and recipes for sourdough bread.

Source: www.reuters.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
Malaysia's government extended the time frame for movement and business curbs by another four weeks to June 9, amid a gradual reopening of economic activity stunted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: www.justjared.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
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Jesus speaks to a Roma (gypsy) man in a dream one night, which leads to the man’s salvation.

Various Pastors joined OM El Salvador on an outreach to Honduras, obeying the Lords command to make disciples.

In a nation filled with tribal tension, OM works toward reconciliation through youth conferences, relief outreaches and a bookshop filled with Bibles.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

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.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

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

In the summer of 2013, a South African member of OM Czech Republic returned to her home country to lead anti-trafficking training and awareness seminars.

In a nation filled with tribal tension, OM works toward reconciliation through youth conferences, relief outreaches and a bookshop filled with Bibles.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

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.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

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

Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.

On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.

In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.

The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”

At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.

Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”

The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.

"At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.

Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger."

Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.

When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child," the doctors association stressed.

Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.

A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

Barack Obama has criticised Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pabndemic, and described it as an 'absolute chaotic disaster', according to reports.

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

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 - 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.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

In a nation filled with tribal tension, OM works toward reconciliation through youth conferences, relief outreaches and a bookshop filled with Bibles.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

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.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

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

Parks testing public access at several parks with limited offerings and services

A married Maryland couple in their 80s were the victims in a shooting at a veterans cemetery in Delaware

Images show man lunging toward an officer who had tried to calm him down.

Trump’s taped message was played during a broadcast of the UFC 249 undercard.

More U.S. employers seem to be recognizing a growing possibility.

Penn State Altoona has announced the spring 2020 commencement student marshals, chosen to represent their academic division based on outstanding academic achievement.

The Penn State DuBois Delta Mu Sigma Honor Society has announced award winners for the 2019-20 academic year.

Penn State DuBois Lecturer of Human Development and Family Studies Marly Doty was added to the University-wide Student Engagement Network’s Faculty Academy as a fellow this spring. She will create a model to help freshmen students be informed in their journey as they participate in a first-year seminar or first-year experience course.

James Dillard, distinguished professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State, describes strategies to help regulate emotions during the stress and uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.

Erin Brown and William McCarter were Penn State’s 2020 nominees for the Truman Scholarship, which rewards students for commitments to public service.

As part of Penn State’s 2020 spring commencement activities, Panini Pandya will represent international studies as its student marshal. Pandya, a Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar, will graduate with bachelor of arts degrees in international politics, Spanish and history, with a minor in geography.

As part of Penn State’s 2020 spring commencement activities, Andrew Bernstein will represent the Department of Political Science in the College of the Liberal Arts as the department’s student marshal. Bernstein, a Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar, will graduate with bachelor of arts degrees in political science and Spanish, with a minor in economics.

As part of Penn State’s 2020 spring commencement activities, August Pasquale will represent ROTC in the College of the Liberal Arts as its student marshal. Pasquale will graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and a bachelor of science degree in finance.

As part of Penn State’s 2020 spring commencement activities, Lena Becker will represent the Department of Psychology as its student marshal. Becker, a Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar, will graduate with a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a bachelor of arts degree in Spanish.

As part of Penn State’s 2020 spring commencement activities, Leah DeLancey will represent sociology in the College of the Liberal Arts as the department’s student marshal. DeLancey will graduate with bachelor of arts degrees in sociology and political science.