THERE was a popular fad in the 1990s for presenting music in its rawest form. Rather than the traditional bombast of turning everything up to 11, MTV Unplugged stripped it back to the basics. Often it was simply one singer, one guitar and a stool. And it was hugely popular.

IT should really be remembered as one of Danny McGrain’s finest hours, not Scottish football’s darkest days.

In the spring of 2011, a team from OM Czech Republic trekked in a remote area of the Himalayas on a four-week medical mission.

OM Czech Republic engaged in a medical mission outreach and evangelism ministry to villages in northern Ghana.

Bringing justice for the oppressed is the mandate given to every Christian, says Natasha Shoultz, working among sex workers in Prague.

Gerechtigkeit zu den Unterdrückten zu bringen ist ein Auftrag für jeden Christen, sagt Natasha Shoultz, die unter Frauen in Prostitution in Prag arbeitet.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

 

THERE is a new altar to worship at: all hail the mighty god of DIY. If you're not sitting down to a Zoom call on Monday morning with plaster-streaked hair, singed eyebrows and muscles aching from hard graft, what on earth have you been doing with your weekend?

More than 100 coronavirus-related attacks and threats have been made towards Scotland's police force, new figures have revealed.

SCOTLAND is carrying out less than one third of the tests it has the capacity to do in the Covid-19 crisis – as concerns grow about the nation's test, trace and isolate strategy in any future easing of lockdown.

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

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.            

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.

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

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

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

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

CDC head Robert Redfield and FDA chief Stephen Hahn are also quarantining.

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

He's in a growing spat with officials over reopening an electric vehicle plant.

Officials in Italy say an Italian aid worker who was kidnapped in Kenya in late 2018 has been freed in Somalia

He was surfing off Manresa State Beach on the northern end of Monterey Bay.

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

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

Penn State Altoona students from various disciplines showcased their work through Zoom presentations to faculty, staff, students, the local community, family and friends.

A poem by Erin Murphy, professor of English, has been selected for the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Public Poetry Project.

Courtney Kantoski has created a line of T-shirts and tank tops which she is selling to benefit the United Way of Blair County’s COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.

Penn State Altoona's Alumni Society is mailing "graduation goodie" packages to each of the college's 200 graduating seniors.

Penn State Altoona this spring recognized outstanding employee contributions with the 2020 faculty and staff awards.

Andrea Regalbuto was awarded second place in the oral presentation category for Arts and Humanities at the Penn State Undergraduate Exhibition, held virtually April 15-17.

Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has published an article written about Carolyn Mahan's newest research grant.

The annual Student Awards Ceremony — celebrating achievements in scholarship, service, creative activity, student life, athletics, and more — is now available to view online.

The North Central PA LaunchBox is driving collaborative relationships with and between local, regional and state organizations, as well as government, to drive economic development in the region.

With the digital business landscape ever-changing due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the North Central PA LaunchBox is teaming up with the Altoona LaunchBox to offer the webinar “Cyber Security for Business” from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 6.

The A.J. and Sigismunda Palumbo Charitable Trust has committed an additional $50,000 to a scholarship fund that will help students earn an education at Penn State DuBois. The Palumbo Scholarship at Penn State DuBois was established in 2008 with a $25,000 gift from the Palumbo Charitable Trust. To date, the trust has gifted more than $525,000 to campus scholarship funds.

In addition to Penn State’s virtual spring 2020 commencement ceremony at 2 p.m. on May 9, individual campuses and colleges across the University will be offering special recognition and events to their graduates.

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.