Recent deaths have stood out, but scientists say they must be interpreted with caution

Amid the steady stream of stories on the lives lost to coronavirus are cases that stand out as remarkable. In the past month, at least two pairs of twins have died in Britain and two pairs of brothers, all within hours or days of each other. But do the deaths point to genetic factors that make some more likely than others to succumb to the disease?

Most scientists believe that genes play a role in how people respond to infections. A person’s genetic makeup may influence the receptors that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells. How resilient the person is to the infection, their general health, and how the immune system reacts will also have some genetic component.

A man whose wife was killed in the April mass shooting in Nova Scotia is the plaintiff named in a proposed class-action lawsuit against the estate of the deceased gunman, denturist Gabriel Wortman.

A young wild horse likely wouldn't have survived the night if a group of animal lovers hadn't stumbled across the filly struggling — and failing — to drag itself out of a two-metre deep mud hole.

Danish Chagani was excited when the lawyer who lived down the hall from his Toronto condo wanted to rent his unit after he bought a house for his young family. But the first-time landlord says the feeling was short-lived.

Alberta's police watchdog have released new details about an armed confrontation that left one person dead and a police officer seriously injured.

Living on a 10-acre plot of land 100 kilometres outside Toronto, David Stevens thought he and his family were well prepared to ride out the COVID-19 quarantine. But after a call from his mother, he learned that even the best laid plans can go wrong.

Mother's Day is coming up, but it doesn't feel quite right for Dawn Degeus. The 39-year-old mother from Ancaster, Ont., will try to celebrate while one of her two kids actively avoids her.

The mother of a newborn wants to see her own mother cuddle the baby, while adult children must rely on virtual connections with their elderly mother. COVID-19 proves challenging physically and emotionally for many this Mother's Day.

There is now an outbreak of COVID-19 linked to Canada Post's main plant in Calgary, according to Alberta Health Services.

Most are doing their best to avoid other people's germs right now. But for cleaners and those who get rid of that trash, they're coming into contact with COVID-19 every shift.

In a tale of two cities, Moscow keeps its distance while in Minsk, thousands turn out for the traditional military spectacular

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In any other year, hundreds of thousands of Russians would have marched with portraits of relatives who fought in the second world war in a memorial called the Immortal Regiment.

But on Saturday, the images of Soviet veterans and their families floated past on Russian television, a public vigil adapted for the era of social isolation.

The US believes Russia is working with Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, to send militia fighters and equipment to Libya, according to senior officials. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, US special envoy for Syria, Jim Jeffrey, said Libya’s increasingly shadowy battlefield could get even more complicated. “We know that, certainly, the Russians are working with Assad to transfer militia fighters, possibly third country, possibly Syrian, to Libya, as well as equipment,” he said. His comments came a day after a leaked UN report confirmed the presence of Russian and Syrian mercenaries operating in Libya in support of renegade military commander, Khalifa Haftar. The report revealed that Russian private military contractor, Wagner Group, has up to 1,200 mercenaries operating in Libya in support of General Haftar’s forces, which are already backed by the UAE, Russia and Egypt. The report, seen by Reuters, is one of the first indications of the scale of Wagner’s military operation in Libya’s messy battlefield, as well as the first time the UN has confirmed the presence of the shadowy Russian mercenaries. Since 2014, the oil-rich North African country has been split between areas controlled by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli and the northwest, and territory held by Gen Haftar’s eastern-based forces in Benghazi. For almost six years Gen Haftar’s forces have been at war with a coalition of militias from the west of the country who support the government in Tripoli. Turkey is the only military backer of the Tripoli government that is currently trying to stave off Haftar’s year-long offensive on the capital. The UAE and Egypt have long strengthened Haftar’s forces with military equipment, including aircraft and helicopters, while Moscow provided private contractor forces. As the conflict has drawn on and involvement has increasingly become the stage for a struggle for power in the region, diplomats say both Turkey and the UAE have deployed drones and the use of mercenaries has increased, now seemingly including forces from Russia and Syria. Libya has been mired in chaos since a 2011 NATO intervention helped topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and its battlefields increasingly populated with foreign fighters in a shadow-war. Russian mercenaries were first reported fighting alongside General Haftar’s forces in Libya in 2018. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, however, insisted that those mercenaries do not represent the Russian government. Yet when General Haftar visited Moscow in 2018, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with long-standing ties to Mr Putin and suspected owner of Wagner, was seen in the footage of the meeting, sitting near the Russian defence minister. Russia, which also backs Assad’s government in Syria, has maintained a delicate balancing act in Libya, forging ties with both the UN-recognised government and with the rebel commander. But Moscow’s patience with General Haftar began to run out earlier this year when he and his entourage in January abruptly left the much-anticipated cease-fire talks in Moscow mediated by Russia and Turkey without signing the deal. Henry Wooster, deputy assistant secretary at State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs also expressed increasing concern over the ties between the Libyan commander and Syria’s president, who are both bitter enemies of Turkey and fighting Turkish-backed militant groups on their soil. “Haftar’s establishment of so-called diplomatic relations with the Assad regime...is very much a part of the piece of the question of Syrian mercenaries, at least on his side of the equation,” he said. While the leaked report also confirmed the presence of Syrian mercenaries in Libya fighting alongside Haftar’s forces, Pro-Turkish Syrians are also known to be fighting with the Tripoli government, against General Haftar.

Smart Education And Learning Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Age, By Component (Hardware, Software, Service), By Learning Mode, By End User, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05891723/?utm_source=PRN The global smart education and learning market size is expected to reach USD 680.1 billion by 2027. The market is anticipated to witness a CAGR of 17.9% from 2020 to 2027. Demand for smart education and learning solutions is increasing among the growing population in corporate and academic sectors, owing to benefits such as improved education quality and easy access to educational content. Increasing adoption of consumer electronics, such as smartphones, e-readers, laptops, and e-learning applications, has altered conventional education methodology and has enhanced the efficiency of an individual to learn. Additionally, there are enormous opportunities for advancements in the market, owing to improved internet accessibility.Also, the COVID - 19 outbreak has emerged an opportunity for the market with an increasing number of states and countries closing educational institutes. For instance, over 90.0% of the world's students are not attending their schools due to this pandemic, as mentioned by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organization of The Commonwealth (Canada), has supported educational institutions and governments in building robust distance education solutions for quality e-learning practices. However, lack of awareness among end-users about the latest technologies and inadequate amount of resources for delivering quality education in developing regions is anticipated to hinder market growth.The simulation-based learning segment is anticipated to exhibit the highest CAGR because this mode enables corporate professional and educational institutions to create a realistic experience in a controlled environment.It also allows professionals and learners to practice, navigate, explore, and obtain more information through a virtual medium before they start working on real-life tasks.Growing awareness among people and the rising popularity of smart education are encouraging solution providers to invest in research and development for creating more reliable, better, and cost-effective solutions. Manufacturers are making substantial investments in developing new products for enhancing the user experience.Smart education and learning market report highlights:• Growing demand for smart educational practices can be accredited to factors, such as reducing expenses of online training, curbing geographic challenges in physically attending classes, and time constraints faced by aspirants• Increasing penetration of the Internet of Things (IoT), enhanced internet accessibility, and rapid adoption of mobile technology have encouraged users to adopt smart education and learning solutions• Innovative techniques, such as gamification, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), microlearning, and adaptive learning, which improve the overall educational process, are expected to drive the market over the projected period• North America accounted for the largest market share in 2019 owing to its large consumer base for e-learning methodsRead the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05891723/?utm_source=PRN About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been praised for her realism and flexibility when it comes to using her country's reproduction rate to inform lockdown policies. During a press conference on April 16 she explained: "The whole evolution (of the rate) is based on the fact that we assume that we have an infection figure that we can monitor, that we can track and that we have more protection concepts and that, thanks to those, we can loosen restrictions. "But it is thin ice," as Mr Tschentscher (the Hamburg Mayor) said, "or a fragile situation, or really a situation where caution is the order of the day and not overconfidence". The Robert Koch Institute, the government’s health agency, provides regular updates on the country’s rate. On May 5, it stood at 0.71, slightly declining two days later to 0.65. Mrs Merkel’s caution is reflected across the border in France, where the R has fluctuated as the country began easing lockdown measures. On May 1, Jerome Salomon, France's public health chief, said it had risen to between 0.6 and 0.7 on average from 0.5, due to the “progressive return to activity”. But officials are not solely relying on the R, instead reviewing several indicators to decide when to loosen restrictions. At the end of April Spanish authorities said almost all areas of the country had a reproduction number below one, but that they would not consider easing restrictions unless this continues.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Israel next week for a brief visit amid the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, a trip that’s expected to focus on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex portions of the West Bank, the State Department said Friday. Pompeo will make the lightning trip to Jerusalem to see Netanyahu and his new coalition partner Benny Gantz on Wednesday as the Trump administration tries to return to business as normal by resuming governmental travel and reopening an economy devastated by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Kenyans are afraid that money set aside to tackle the virus is being misspent, writes Waihiga Mwaura.

Hackers linked to Iran have targeted staff at U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc in recent weeks, according to publicly-available web archives reviewed by Reuters and three cybersecurity researchers, as the company races to deploy a treatment for the COVID-19 virus. In one case, a fake email login page designed to steal passwords was sent in April to a top Gilead executive involved in legal and corporate affairs, according to an archived version on a website used to scan for malicious web addresses. Ohad Zaidenberg, lead intelligence researcher at Israeli cybersecurity firm ClearSky, who closely tracks Iranian hacking activity and has investigated the attacks, said the attempt was part of an effort by an Iranian group to compromise email accounts of staff at the company using messages that impersonated journalists.

The Senate failed to override President Trump's veto of legislation that would have prevented him from taking military action in Iran without congressional approval. On Thursday, the Senate voted 49-44 in favor of the override, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for it to be approved. Both chambers of Congress passed the bipartisan resolution earlier this year.

The Senate failed to override President Trump's veto of legislation that would have prevented him from taking military action in Iran without congressional approval. On Thursday, the Senate voted 49-44 in favor of the override, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for it to be approved. Both chambers of Congress passed the bipartisan resolution earlier this year.

A Colombian advertising company is pitching a novel if morbid solution to shortages of hospital beds and coffins during the coronavirus pandemic: combine them. ABC Displays has created a cardboard bed with metal railings that designers say can double as a casket if a patient dies. Company manager Rodolfo Gómez said he was inspired to find a way to help after watching events unfold recently in nearby Ecuador.

An earthquake struck early Friday near Iran's highest peak and jolted Tehran, killing at least one person and injuring more than 20 as people ran for their lives. The shallow 4.6 magnitude quake hit at 00:48 am (2018 GMT) near the city of Damavand, about 55 kilometres (34 miles) east of Tehran, the US Geological Survey said. It saw scores of residents of Tehran flee buildings for the safety of the capital's streets and parks, AFP journalists reported.

A hard Brexit is more likely due to the coronavirus crisis because Britain and the European Union have made so little progress in talks, Germany's foreign minister has said. Heiko Maas said that negotiations between Britain and the EU so far on the future trade relationship had yielded few gains with the UK disregarding the political declaration, which he said was "simply not on". Britain left the EU in January, and talks with the bloc are now focused on setting new trading terms from 2021, when London's status-quo transition period ends. However, the talks quickly hit an impasse when negotiations resumed last month, according to diplomats and officials. "It's worrying that Britain is moving further away from our jointly agreed political declaration on key issues in the negotiations," Mr Maas told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. "It's simply not on, because the negotiations are a complete package as it's laid out in the political declaration." Mr Maas said there was currently neither common ground on how to shape a comprehensive trade deal or on whether to extend the negotiation period beyond the end of the year. "The British government is still refusing to extend the deadline," Mr Maas said. "If it stays that way, we will have to deal with Brexit in addition to the coronavirus at the turn of the year." Simon Coveney, Ireland's foreign minister, said on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic had made an already difficult timeline for a British-European Union trade deal "virtually impossible" and that it would make sense to seek more time.

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has approved amendments to the country's state of emergency that grant him and security agencies additional powers, which the government says are needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak. An international rights group condemned the amendments, saying the government has used the global pandemic to “expand, not reform, Egypt’s abusive Emergency Law.” The new amendments allow the president to to take measures to contain the virus, such as suspending classes at schools and universities and quarantining those returning from abroad.

The flight from Italy was one of the last arrivals that day at the Stockholm airport. A Swedish couple in their 50s walked up and loaded their skis into Razzak Khalaf's taxi. It was early March and concerns over the coronavirus were already present, but the couple, both coughing for the entire 45-minute journey, assured Khalaf they were healthy and just suffering from a change in the weather.

On the 75th anniversary of the allied victory in the World War II, The Associated Press spoke to veterans in ex-Soviet countries and discovered that lessons they learned during the war are helping them cope with a new major challenge — the coronavirus pandemic. As they recalled the horrors of the war, they also talked about how strength and tenacity were key to survival both then and now. For Russian World War II veteran Valentina Efremova, the coronavirus pandemic is like going through the war all over again.

A U.N. Security Council meeting on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe on Friday saw a clash between Russia and some Europeans, calls for unity to fight COVID-19, and warnings that the seeds of a new global conflict must be prevented from growing. Nearly 70 speakers, including more than 45 foreign ministers and the European Union’s top diplomat, took part in the informal video meeting organized by Estonia, which holds the council presidency this month, on lessons learned from the war for preventing future atrocities and the Security Council’s responsibility. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the world is facing “its biggest crisis since the end of World War II” triggered by the outbreak of the coronavirus, which “is shaking the foundations of our societies and exposing the vulnerabilities of the most fragile countries.”

Iran warned Saturday that coronavirus infections were rising in the southwest despite falls in other regions, as it announced more than 1,500 new confirmed cases. "All provinces are showing a gradual drop in new infections... except for Khuzestan, where the situation is still concerning," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in televised remarks. The health ministry stopped publishing provincial figures for the coronavirus last month.

President Vladimir Putin told Russians they are "invincible" when they stand together as the country on Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in lockdown from the coronavirus. With cases surging and authorities urging Russians to stay in their homes, celebrations of this year's Victory Day were muted after the Kremlin grudgingly postponed plans for a grand parade with world leaders. Instead of columns of military hardware and thousands of troops marching through Red Square as planned, Putin walked alone to lay flowers at the Eternal Flame outside the red brick walls of the Kremlin.

Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of U.S. history — when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance.

Cancellation of the ceremony was the second blow to Putin, who was forced to call off a referendum extending his time in power.

Cancellation of the ceremony was the second blow to Putin, who was forced to call off a referendum extending his time in power.

Myan Mode, a garment factory on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, produces men's jackets, women's blazers and coats for Western fashion companies like Mango and Zara. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, it has seen a decrease in orders from international retailers.That was why it let go almost half of its 1,274 workers in late March, the factory's managing director said in response to protesters who arrived at the factory's doors to denounce the dismissals.Three fired sewing operators, however, said the factory was taking an opportunity to punish workers engaged in union activity. In an interview, the operators -- Maung Moe, Ye Yint and Ohnmar Myint -- said that of the 571 who had been dismissed, 520 had belonged to the factory's union, one of 20 that make up the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar. About 700 workers who did not belong to the union kept their jobs, they said.Myan Mode's South Korean-based owner did not respond to requests for comment, and did not provide details about the firings.Moe, 27, was the factory union's president and had organized several strikes. Yint, 30, was the union's secretary, while Myint, 34, had been a union member since its founding in June 2018."The bosses used COVID as an opportunity to get rid of us because they hated our union," Moe said. He said he and other union members had been in discussions with the factory managers before the firings, demanding personal protective equipment and that workers be farther apart on the factory floor. "They thought we caused them constant headaches by fighting for our rights and those of our fellow workers."Union-busting -- practices undertaken to prevent or disrupt the formation of trade unions or attempts to expand membership -- has been a serious problem across the fashion supply chain for decades. But with the global spread of COVID-19 placing fresh pressures on the industry, it is a particular issue in South Asia, where about 40 million garment workers have long grappled with poor working conditions and wages."Union-busting is not a COVID-specific issue for the garment industry -- it happens all the time," said Luke Smitham of the sustainability consultancy Kumi Consulting.Zara's parent company, Inditex, which is supplied by Myan Mode, said its code of conduct for manufacturers expressly prohibited any discrimination against worker representatives. The company said in an email that it was "actively following the situation" at Myan Mode, and would "try to achieve the best possible solution for workers."Mango, which has started to reopen its stores in Europe, said in an emailed statement that it "understood the need to ensure that the human rights of factory workers are respected." The company added that it was maintaining "a continuous" dialogue with suppliers.Roughly 2% of garment workers in Myanmar, where the minimum wage is roughly $3.50 a day, and 0.5% of garment workers in Bangladesh belong to a union, according to affiliate data estimates collected by the global trade union IndustriALL. While Cambodia's workforce is more unionized than others in the region -- around 80% -- the unions there are fragmented, meaning successful collective bargaining negotiations can be difficult.Tear gas, water cannons, police brutality and imprisonment were some of the tools used by the governments of Bangladesh, Cambodia, India and Myanmar to punish striking garment workers and union members last year, according to the International Trade Union Confederation, an umbrella group for unions around the world. It noted that many workers in those countries who tried to form a union were dismissed from jobs or blacklisted by factories. And the number of countries that exclude workers from the right to establish or join a trade union increased to 107 in 2019 from 92 in 2018.Andrew Tillett-Saks, a labor organizer in Yangon, said he had seen a surge in unionizing by garment workers in Myanmar over the last 18 months -- and a reaction from factory owners. Before the pandemic, he said, some garment factories with fledgling unions were abruptly closing and firing union members, then reopening weeks later to supply the same brands under a slightly different name with a new group of nonunionized workers.Tillett-Saks said that much of the focus had been on whether brands would pay wages for workers during the pandemic, or for orders that had already been produced. But factory owners "taking this as an opportunity to break down labor movements in the supply chain could be an even bigger issue."Some brands, like H&M, have tried to facilitate union activity in supplier factories by signing ACT, an agreement brokered by IndustriALL and designed to secure fair wages for workers through collective bargaining and building guarantees of labor rights into purchasing agreements. But there are still hurdles. Before the International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency, can take action, allegations of mistreatment must be sent in writing from a national or international trade union organization and then reviewed internally by the agency -- a complicated process even before the pandemic."We have heard allegations of anti-union discrimination in recent weeks," said John Ritchotte, a specialist in social dialogue and labor administration in Asia for the International Labor Organization. "However, it is currently more difficult than usual for us to verify those allegations through our usual procedures because of travel restrictions and local lockdowns."In the weeks since the Myan Mode layoffs, around 15,000 jobs in the textile industry have been lost and about 40 factories closed across Asia, said Khaing Zar Aung, president of Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar.Moe said the fired Myan Mode workers had protested outside the factory for weeks, watching as daily wage workers entered and scores of exhausted former colleagues left at midnight after overtime shifts. Eventually, management offered severance but not re-employment to the 571 fired workers, plus 49 employees who had walked out in solidarity. All but 79 eventually took the severance pay.The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia said about 60% of its factories -- where union members have also been targeted -- had been severely affected by canceled orders of ready-made garment exports because of the pandemic.On March 31, several dozen union workers at the Superl leatherwear factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh -- which produces handbags for brands like Michael Kors, Tory Burch and Kate Spade -- were told they were being let go. One was a woman who was six months pregnant.Soy Sros, a factory shop steward and the local president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, wrote about the company's actions on Facebook, stating it violated a March 6 appeal from the Cambodian government saying COVID should not be used as a chance to discriminate against union members.Twenty-four hours later, Sros was forced by factory management to take down her post and make a thumbprint on a warning letter accusing her of defamation. On April 2, she was removed from the factory floor by the police and charged with posting fake information on social media. She is now in jail.Superl, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Michael Kors and Tory Burch, who regularly place orders at the factory. Another customer, Tapestry, the owner of Kate Spade, declined to comment.In Myanmar, Moe, Yint and Myint all said they did not regret joining the union despite the difficulties they had faced. They said the loss of jobs was proof that worker representation was needed."I worry for the future of garment workers here without representatives," Myint said, referring to both the firings at Myan Mode and other factories across Asia. "But for now, I worry about providing for my family and getting food on the table."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

No, you should not CC the CEO on every email you send.

Pai’s “baffling” report ignores broadband gaps and high prices, Democrats say.

Comcast hasn't enforced data cap since March 13 because of pandemic.

Form requires sensitive data, including driver’s license and voided check scan.

Advanced hacker group seeded market with at least 8 apps likely since 2016.

You've probably never heard of LockBit, but that's likely to change.

Small ISPs want investigation as Frontier tries to block FCC funding for rivals.

There's a scramble to adapt to a world where people routinely cover their faces.

Pandemic disrupts broadband progress as cities halt construction.

Because the airline industry can monetize literally anything, apparently.

We put Caddy 2.0.0 head to head against a ranking heavyweight, Apache 2.4.41.

Learn to get the most out of your ZFS filesystem in our new series on storage fundamentals.

FCC accuses military of “baseless fear-mongering” in fight over Ligado network.

"I just always want to reiterate the spiders are our friends, and this isn't a dangerous spider," said Royal B.C. Museum entomologist Claudia Copley.