Arguing that a one-time payment of USD 1,200 to most of the Americans during the coronavirus outbreak is not enough, three top Democratic senators introduced a legislation on Friday to provide a recurring USD-2,000 monthly check to those struggling to make ends meet during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act, introduced by former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Ed Markey, proposes to provide a monthly USD-2,000 check to every individual with an income below USD 120,000 throughout and for three months following the coronavirus pandemic. According to the proposal, married couples who file jointly would receive USD 4,000; USD 2,000 per child up to three children and it would be implemented retroactively from March. The coronavirus pandemic has caused millions to struggle to pay the bills or feed their families, Harris said. The previous CARES Act, she argued, gave Americans an important one-time ...

US lawmakers have introduced a legislation in Congress to give unused green cards or permanent legal residency status to thousands of foreign nurses and doctors to meet the urgent needs of the overstretched healthcare sector in the country. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would allow for recapturing green cards that were approved by Congress but unused in past years, allowing thousands of additional medical professionals to serve permanently in the United States. The legislation would send green cards to 25,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that places like Iowa have the professionals they need to serve patients for years to come, a media release said. The move is likely to benefit a large number of Indian nurses and doctors, who are either on H-1B or J2 visas. In the House of Representatives, it has been introduced by lawmakers Abby Finkenauer, Brad Schneider, Tom Cole and Don Bacon. The bipartisan Senate companion bill is led by Senators ..

China continues to hide and obfuscate COVID-19 data from the world, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, asserting that he has seen a significant amount of evidence suggesting that a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan was underperforming and the virus could well have emanated from there. "I have seen a significant amount of evidence that suggests that the lab was underperforming, that there were security risks at the lab and that the virus could well have emanated from there," Pompeo told Ben Shapiro in an interview. "But I am happy to suspend the decision about that. What we need are answers. There are still people dying," he said. By Friday, more than 78,000 Americans had died and 13 lakh tested positive for the coronavirus. Globally, more than 273,000 people have died and 39 lakh tested positive for the disease. The American economy and those of the rest of the world have come to a standstill. "We have got an economy now that is really struggling and it is all a ..

Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee and former US vice president Joe Biden alleged on Friday that President Donald Trump utterly failed to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic and said his entire economic strategy is focussed on helping the wealthy and big corporations. Referring to the record 2.05 crore jobs lost in April alone, resulting in an unprecedented unemployment rate of 14.7 per cent now -- the highest since the Great Depression -- Biden, in a major policy speech, said it is an economic disaster, worse than any in decades, and it was made all the more worse because it did not have to be this way. "Donald Trump utterly failed to prepare for this pandemic and delayed in taking the necessary steps to safeguard our nation against the near-worst-case economic scenario we are now living in," he said in his remarks on "Trump's Disastrous Economy". COVID-19 caused a massive economic challenge, but the crisis hit the US harder and will last longer because Trump spent the

The owner of a popular Indian-American grocery story has been charged with price gouging during the coronavirus pandemic, when the entire state is under stay-at-home orders. Following consumer complaints, an investigation office revealed that Rajvinder Singh, owner of the popular Apna Bazaar in California's Pleasanton, had allegedly increased the prices of grocery items following the emergency declaration by the governor on March 4. Based on evidence provided by customer receipts, the investigation confirmed that the pricing of several food items exceeded the 10-per cent increase allowed during a state of emergency, with some prices being as much as 200 per cent more than what was previously charged, according to a joint statement issued by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley. The food items listed in the complaint include yellow onions, ginger, green beans, instant noodles, tea, chili peppers, pomegranates and red yams. "We ..

Three sisters who worked in Mexico's government hospital system were found murdered by strangling, authorities in the northern border state of Coahuila announced on Friday, stirring new alarm in a country where attacks on healthcare workers have occurred across the nation amid the coronavirus outbreak. Two of the sisters were nurses for the Mexican Social Security Institute and the third was a hospital administrator, but there was no immediate evidence the attack was related to their work. The state prosecutor told local media the motive might have been robbery. State police said the bodies were found in a house in the city of Torreon. The Social Security Institute said they were killed on Thursday. The National Union of Social Security Employees called the killings "outrageous and incomprehensible". In other parts of Mexico, nurses have had been hit, kicked off public transport or had cleaning fluids poured on them amid fears they might spread the coronavirus. Mexican health ...

US Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary has the coronavirus, the White House said on Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week. President Donald Trump, who publicly identified the affected Pence aide, said he was "not worried" about the virus spreading in the White House. Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols for the complex. Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller, who tested positive on Friday, had been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. She is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working out of the White House. Katie Miller had tested negative on Thursday, a day before her positive result. "This is why the whole concept of tests are not necessarily great," Trump said. "The tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it is ...

A funeral home business leader for Brazil's state that covers much of the Amazon region says emergency coffin shipments have started to arrive for people who have died of COVID-19. Manuel Viana is president of the Amazonas Union of Funeral Companies and said Friday that more than 500 coffins were delivered by ship to Manaus, the largest city in Amazonas state. He says hundreds more are on the way and will be distributed in Manaus and other cities in the region. Manaus is one of the hardest hit Brazilian cities for coronavirus deaths and Viana says there are predictions that the city of more than 2 million could have more than 4,300 deaths in May. A Johns Hopkins University count says there have been more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths so far in Latin America's largest and most populous country. A Brazil funeral home association last week requested an airlift of coffins to Manaus.

An appeals court should let a June 23 primary election in New York state proceed without voters and poll workers being forced to risk exposure to the coronavirus to vote for a Democratic candidate for president when the race is essentially over, lawyers for the state said Friday. The written arguments were filed by Attorney General Letitia James and Senior Assistant Solicitor Judith N. Vale after a judge ordered the state to include the presidential race on the ballot even though former Vice President Joe Biden is essentially running unopposed. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has scheduled oral arguments for next Friday. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said it was unconstitutional to eliminate the Democratic presidential primary after delegates for withdrawn candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang complained that doing so weakens their standing at the Democratic Convention. She noted that a primary for contested races across New York state was ...

Two men were arrested Friday in the fatal shooting of a security guard who demanded a woman wear a mask while shopping at a store. Genesee County authorities said Ramonyea Bishop, 23, was taken into custody at an apartment in Bay City. His alleged accomplice, Larry Teague, 44, was arrested Thursday near a motel in Houston. The men and Sharmel Teague, the wife of Larry Teague, are charged with first degree murder in the May 1 shooting of Calvin Munerlyn at a Family Dollar store in Flint. Munerlyn was shot at the store just north of downtown Flint a short time after telling Sharmel Teague's daughter she had to leave because she lacked a mask, according to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton. Teague argued with Munerlyn, 43, before leaving. Two men later came to the store and allegedly shot the security guard to death.. Bishop's sister, Brya Bishop, was previously charged with tampering with evidence, lying to police and being an accessory to a felony. Leyton has said she attempted to

South Korea has reported 18 fresh cases of the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours, including 12 in the capital of Seoul, as health workers scramble to trace contacts after detecting a slew of transmissions linked to clubgoers. Figures released by South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought national totals to 10,840 cases and 256 deaths. While the KCDC didn't immediately release specific details, most of the new cases were likely linked to the nightclubs in Seoul's Itaewon leisure district, which was brought to a sudden standstill Friday night following reports of the transmissions. Officials on Friday said they detected at least 15 infections linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three Itaewon clubs on Saturday before testing positive on Wednesday. The infections raised concern about a broader spread of the virus in the Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea's 51 million people live. South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun in a

In Texas, where the Republican governor was praised by President Donald Trump for loosening restrictions, hair salons and barber shops were allowed to reopen Friday, following earlier restarts of restaurants and retailers. Republican Senator Ted Cruz flew up from Houston to get his hair cut at a Dallas salon that became a rallying cry for conservative protests against lockdown orders after the owner refused to shut down and was jailed. She was later ordered released. California, which imposed the first statewide stay-home order in the U.S., was taking more modest steps. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom allowed clothing stores, sporting goods shops, florists and other retailers to start operating curbside pickup Friday, with many employees required to wear masks. Pennsylvania announced that 13 counties, including much of the Pittsburgh area, can loosen restrictions next week, following a similar move for a swath of rural northern Pennsylvania. South Carolina restaurants can reopen with

The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation's top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails. The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval. The trove of emails obtained by The Associated Press show the nation's top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation. The document, titled Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework, was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed decision trees, or flow ..

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates has predicted that next year's coronavirus-delayed Tokyo Games may ultimately be amongst the great games ever, if not the greatest. The Sydney-born Coates, who oversees planning for the Tokyo Olympics for the International Olympic Committee, told the AOC's annual general meeting on Saturday that he would put aside any of his parochialism while hoping that Tokyo would supplant Sydney as the best ever. At the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Games, then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch described the Australian event as the best Olympic Games ever during the closing ceremony. The best-ever"claims for Tokyo by Coates, who did not go into further details, come despite spiraling costs for the Japan games, which will now begin on June 23, 2021. Japan is officially spending $12.6 billion to organize the Olympics, but a government audit report last year said it was at least twice that much. It's all public money except for $5.6 billion .

American stock car auto racing's comeback later this month from the coronavirus pandemic will cost three tracks their 2020 season races with more schedule adjustments coming soon. That was the word Friday from the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the closed-cockpit series that is the most popular form of US auto racing. Races at Sonoma, California; Joliet, Illinois and Richmond, Virginia were named those moved to ovals without spectators this month to jumpstart the US revival of sport in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic shutdown. Sonoma Raceway officials said the road course tried to find a new date to replace June 14 but couldn't "given the ongoing uncertainty around large events in California." It will be staged instead on May 27 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which will host a regularly scheduled race three days earlier in what will essentially be made-for-television events. A planned June 21 race at Chicagoland will be the May 17 comeback event at ...

China has reported 15 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases, taking their total to 836 while one new imported COVID-19 infection was confirmed, health officials said on Saturday. According to China's National Health Commission (NHC), as for Friday 836 asymptomatic cases, including 63 from overseas, were still under medical observation. The NHC said one imported case of coronavirus was reported on Friday and 15 new asymptomatic cases, all domestic ones, were confirmed in the country. Most of the asymptomatic cases were being reported from first coronavirus epicentres Hubei province and its capital Wuhan where no confirmed cases were reported for the 35 days, the local health commission said. Normalcy is returning to the province as the lockdown has been lifted and offices, business and factories have been opened since last month. The province still has 628 asymptomatic cases under medical observation, after 13 new cases were reported on Friday, the commission said. Death toll in China ...

Rafael Nadal says Novak Djokovic will need to be vaccinated to keep playing if the governing bodies of tennis make coronavirus shots obligatory once they become available. Nadal told the Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia this week that Djokovic and all players will have to follow the rules when tennis eventually returns to action. Nadal said no one can be forced to take the vaccine and everyone should be free to make their choices, but all players will have to comply if tennis officials require vaccination to travel and to protect everyone on the tour. Then Djokovic will have to be vaccinated if he wants to keep playing tennis at the top level, Nadal said. The same for me. Everyone will have to follow the rules, just like now we have to stay at home. Djokovic recently said he was against taking a vaccine for the coronavirus even if it became mandatory to travel. He later said he was open to changing his mind. If the ATP or the International Tennis Federation obligates us to take the

Real Madrid attacker Luka Jovic has fracture his right heel, the La Liga giants have announced. In a statement, Real said the 22-year-old's injury had been diagnosed during tests at the club's medical centre, but didn't say how long they expect him to be out of action. According to Spanish media, Serbia's Jovic picked up the injury while training at home shortly after returning to Spain from his home country at the start of the week. Jovic caused controversy in March when he left for Serbia while Real were in quarantine after some of the club's basketball players tested positive for coronavirus. He subsequently explained his test for the virus was negative. He arrived at Real last summer from Eintracht Frankfurt for a reported fee of 60 million euros ($65.1 million). Before the season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he had played 22 times for the capital city club in all competitions, scoring twice.

AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni has revealed that some of his squad members were still recovering from coronavirus. Serie A has been on hold since mid-March but Italian Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora said on Thursday he was hopeful group training could resume on May 18. "We have some infected players in the process of recovery," Scaroni told local media. Scaroni believes Italian football must live with COVID-19 and take an example from the Bundesliga which will restart on May 16. "We have to get used to living with the virus and this also applies to football," he said. "It is not possible to stand still until there is zero infection. Basically we can adopt the German formula that provides that those who are sick go into quarantine while their teammates continue." Milan technical director Paolo Maldini, together with his 18-year-old son Daniel, a youth team player, have both recovered from the virus. "Maldini father and son are doing well. There are players who are improving, but .

Actor Elle Fanning says she would love to pursue direction if she gets a good story. The actor said she "badly" wants to go behind the camera. "It's something that I do want to do badly. You've just got to find the right story. What is it that you want to tell? Is it going to be personal? Is it not? Are you going to write it? Are you not? A lot of big questions. I will for sure one day," Fanning said in an interview with Variety. She will next be seen as Catherine the Great in Hulu's 10-part satirical comedy series "The Great", which debuts on May 15. Fanning is also looking forward to The Nightingale, which also features her sister Dakota. The film, directed by actor Melanie Laurent, was scheduled to release in December but has been postponed by a year due to coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump, who's taken to calling the US the king of ventilators, is making plans to ship 8,000 of the breathing machines to foreign countries by the end of July to help in their fight against the coronavirus. That's a long way from the early days of the virus when US medical workers were wondering if a shortage of ventilators would force them to make painful decisions about which patients would get them. Now, the US has a surplus and the president is sharing them with other countries a goodwill gesture that also helps him offset criticism about his own early response to the pandemic. The White House did not respond to a request for specifics about how many ventilators have been sent so far, or the criteria for determining which countries will get them. But an administration official familiar with the effort provided the 8,000 figure as part of a list of actions aimed at supporting health systems abroad. The official was not authorized to discuss the projection publicly .

Video released Friday from a Maryland police officer's body camera captures him warning the man to drop a knife and get down on the ground before he fatally shot the man as he charged at the officer. Montgomery County Police Sgt. David Cohen fired the first of at least five shots about one minute after he exited his patrol vehicle and confronted Finan H. Berhe, 30, in a residential parking lot on Thursday afternoon. Put the knife down! Cohen screamed as Berhe ran toward him and then stopped, momentarily backing away from the officer, who was pointing a gun at him. Get on the ground! I don't want to shoot you! Cohen shouted just before Berhe started running at the officer again. As the officer opened fire, Berhe collapsed and dropped an object he was holding. Man down! a man shouted after the shooting stopped. Police said investigators recovered a knife that Berhe was brandishing when Cohen shot him. Berhe died at a hospital, police said. No officers were injured. Department spokesman

Ruchi Ghanashyam retired as the Indian High Commissioner to the UK early this month in an unusually discreet way given the constraints related to the coronavirus lockdown, bidding farewell to her team at the India House in London virtually over a conference call. However, there has been little impact on her workload as she continues to be flooded with queries and requests as the first repatriation flight for Indian nationals takes off from London for Mumbai on Saturday. The 60-year-old former diplomat, who is yet to fully pack her bags or say all her goodbyes, is confident that her tenure comes to a close at a time when India-UK relations are poised for real take-off. "India and the UK have strategic ties and a deep relationship which spans almost every area we can think of," said Ghanashyam in a farewell interview. "This depth was even more visible during this time of crisis, when we worked closely together to assist with the repatriation of each other's nationals, facilitated the ...

Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary has the coronavirus, the White House said, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week. President Donald Trump, who publicly identified the affected Pence aide, said he was not worried about the virus spreading in the White House. Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols for the complex. Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller, who tested positive Friday, had been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. She is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working in the White House. Katie Miller had tested negative Thursday, a day before her positive result. This is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great, Trump said. The tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it's good and then something ...

Several American lawmakers have introduced a legislation in Congress to offer the 40,000 unused green cards to thousands of foreign nurses and doctors to meet the urgent needs of the overstretched healthcare sector in the US, the worst hit nation by the coronavirus pandemic. The US has nearly 1,284,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 77,000 people have died due to the highly contagious disease. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would allow for recapturing green cards that were approved by Congress but unused in past years, allowing thousands of additional medical professionals to serve permanently in the United States. The legislation would send green cards to 25,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that states like Iowa have the professionals they need to serve patients for years to come, a media release said. The move is likely to benefit a large number of Indian nurses and doctors in the US, who are either on H-1B or J2 visas. The ..

Filmmaker Mike Flanagan is set to tackle the film adaptation of yet another book from celebrated author Stephen King. Flanagan, who previously helmed the film version of King's novel"Doctor Sleep", is now adapting a scrip from the author's 2014 book "Revival". The filmmaker also has the option to direct the movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project has been set up at Warner Bros and will be produced by Flanagan and Trevor Macy through their banner Intrepid Pictures. "Revival" centres around the relationship between a heroin-addicted musician and a dubious faith healer with a hidden agenda. The minister is obsessed with trying to find a way to communicate with his departed wife and child but ends up connecting to a Lovecraftian horror. Flanagan and Macy have earlier teamed for the 2017 adaptation of King's novel "Gerald's Game", which released on Netflix. They also collaborated on the 2018 Netflix series "The Haunting of Hill House".

World Cup winning-Australia captain Meg Lanning has used the extra time in hand amid the COIVD-19 pandemic to provide a virtual batting class to Ireland women's cricket squad. Lanning was joined by former Ireland skipper Isobel Joyce in the initiative that took place this week to help the players keep their skills sharp during the forced break from cricket. The duo touched upon a number of topics, including the mental preparation going into a big game, shot selection and an analysis of the Australian captain's T20I century against England last year. The session was chaired by Irish women's team head coach Ed Joyce and also featured Australia boss Matthew Mott. "Any time you can pick the brains of experienced cricketers such as Meg and Isobel is valuable, and I know that our entire squad enjoyed this unique opportunity," Ireland skipper Laura Delany said. "People often underestimate the mental aspect of the game, and both players spoke about the importance of mental preparation before .

/ -- In 2019, global PV inverter shipments increased by 18% on a YOY basis with total shipments reaching 126,735 MW according to the report released by Wood Mackenzie. Growatt shipped a total capacity of over 5GW for the year and ranked No.8 among the inverter suppliers. The company has been pursuing a global strategy of localization in recent years and has gained strong growth momentum across the world. "Over the years, we've established 13 offices and warehouses worldwide, and we've also built strong and experienced local teams in key markets," said Lisa Zhang, Growatt Marketing Director. "Besides our extensive service network, we've developed the X generation inverters, which feature high efficiency, safety, intelligence as well as elegant design. These advanced PV solutions have brought us additional advantages over other suppliers in the market." Growatt has been present in Europe for 10 years and its products are well received in the region for its high efficiency, superior ...

In a worrying development, a five-year old boy has died in New York from a rare inflammatory illness linked to the coronavirus, while the death of another seven-year-old boy is being investigated for possible links to the mysterious pediatric syndrome. The New York State Department of Health is investigating several cases of the severe illness in children and child deaths that may be linked to the serious inflammatory disease called "Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome Associated with COVID-19." There have been 73 reported cases in New York where children are experiencing symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock-like syndrome possibly due to COVID-19. On Thursday, a 5-year-old boy died in the New York City from these COVID-related complications, Cuomo said. Officials in Westchester County in upstate New York say that a 7-year-old boy died late last week at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in Valhalla. Michael Gewitz, Physician-in-Chief of Maria Fareri Children's ..

Ivanka Trump's personal assistant has tested positive for the deadly coronavirus, making her the third White House staff member to be infected from COVID-19, a media report said on Saturday. The assistant, who works in a personal capacity for US President Donald Trump's daughter, has not been around her in several weeks, the CNN reported. She has been teleworking for nearly two months and was tested out of caution, the report quoted a source as saying. She was not symptomatic. Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner both tested negative on Friday, the person familiar with the matter told the US news channel. The development comes a day after President Trump confirmed that Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary Katie Miller had tested positive for the coronavirus. "She's a wonderful young woman, Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of a sudden today she tested positive," Trump said during a meeting at the White House. He said Miller had not come into ...

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday 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. But they also include expanded powers to ban public and private meetings, protests, celebrations and other forms of assembly. The government has waged an unprecedented crackdown on dissent since 2013, when el-Sissi rose to power, and unauthorized protests have been banned for years. The amendments also allow military prosecutors to investigate incidents when army officers are tasked with law enforcement or when the .

From resounding applause to ostracization and isolation. That's essentially the journey Lt. Cmdr. Robert Embleton, who served 34 years in Britain's Royal Navy, took by ambulance when discharged from Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, southwestern England, on April 8 following his near-month sickness with COVID-19. Arriving at his retirement home, he immediately went into self-isolation with his wife of 55 years, Jean, who has shown no symptoms of the virus. Soon after, Embleton realized he was carrying some new baggage the stigma of the virus. He even considered buying a bell to warn of his presence. I was regarded as a sort of leper, a plague carrier. Some people when they spotted me, they recoiled, the 79-year-old told The Associated Press. I was particularly regarded as a menace. That's some contrast to his final moments at Derriford Hospital, when the somewhat embarrassed Embleton received a round of applause from all the front-line staff from the cleaners to the doctors. Embleton ..

A new series based on actor Hilary Duff's character from "Younger" is in works at ViacomCBS. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company is working with "Younger" creator Darren Star on the spin-off show that will see Duff returning as Kelsey Peters. The new show could be headed to Paramount Network, where the original series was slated to move for its sixth season. But the plans were shelved and the show remained in its original home on TV Land, which is owned ViacomCBS. "Younger", which started in 2015, features Sutton Foster as Liza Miller, a 40-year-old divorcee who has to manage her career in a publishing company having faked her identity as a younger woman to get her job, while her romantic and professional lives are measured against ups and comings. Duff's Kelsey Peters is a book editor at Empirical Press who befriends Liza after they start working together. The show also stars Nico Tortorella, Peter Hermann, Miriam Shor, Debi Mazar, Molly Bernard and Charles Michael

The WHO and the UN's postal agency have released a commemorative postage stamp on the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, with the head of the global health body expressing gratitude to a top Indian-origin UN official. In May 1980, the 33rd World Health Assembly issued its official declaration that "the world and all its peoples have won freedom from smallpox." It was ended on the back of a 10-year WHO-spearheaded global effort that involved thousands of health workers around the world to administer half a billion vaccinations to stamp out smallpox. "When WHO's smallpox eradication campaign was launched in 1967, one of the ways countries raised awareness about smallpox was through postage stamps when social media like Twitter and Facebook was not even on the horizon," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "I especially want to thank my friend Mr Atul Khare, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support, for ...

Adult animated comedy series Santa Inc, featuring Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman, has been picked up by upcoming streaming platform HBO Max. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the eight-episode series comes from writer, showrunner, and executive producer Alexandra Rushfield. It follows Candy Smalls (Silverman), the highest-ranking female elf in the North Pole. When the successor to Santa Claus (Rogen) is poached by Amazon on Christmas Eve, Candy goes for her ultimate dream -- to become the first woman Santa Claus in the history of Christmas, the plotline read. The project comes from Lionsgate and Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver's Point Grey Pictures. Rushfield, Silverman, Amy Zvi and Rosa Tran will serve as executive producers. I have long dreamed of a taking a beloved holiday tradition and adding a feminist agenda and some R rated comedy and when I read this script from Ali, with Seth and Sarah attached to voice, I knew that it was a perfect fit for us at Max, said Suzanna ...

Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy, the duo whose extraordinary magic tricks astonished millions until Horn was critically injured in 2003 by one of the act's famed white tigers, has died. He was 75. Horn died of complications from the coronavirus on Friday in a Las Vegas hospital, according to a statement released by publicist Dave Kirvin. Today, the world has lost one of the greats of magic, but I have lost my best friend, Siegfried Fischbacher said in the statement. From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world. There could be no Siegfried without Roy, and no Roy without Siegfried. He was injured in October 2003 when a tiger named Montecore attacked him on stage at the Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. He had severe neck injuries, lost a lot of blood and later suffered a stroke. He underwent lengthy rehabilitation, but the attack ended the long-running Las Vegas Strip production. The darker-haired of the flashy duo, Horn was credited with the idea of ...

Nepal has reported seven new coronavirus cases, taking the number of infections in the country to 109, the health ministry said on Saturday. Nepal is among the nations that has the least number of cases of the deadly coronavirus. The new cases involve three women and four men aged between 17 and 65 years. The women belonged to Udayapur district, while three men are from Kapilavastu district and one from Parsa district. With this, the total number of infections in the Himalayan nation has reached 109, it said. So far, 30 people have recovered from the disease, the ministry said. According to the Johns Hopkins University data, the virus has infected over 3.9 million people and claimed over 270,000 people worldwide.

Pop star Taylor Swift has announced an hour-long concert special "City of Lover" which will air on ABC. The announcement comes weeks after Swift was forced to cancel all of her 2020 live appearances and performances, including "Lover Fest East" and "Lover Fest West" , due to coronavirus pandemic. The special, which will air on May 17, was filmed in September at the L'Olympia Theater in Paris, where she performed in front of audiences from 37 countries. It will be available for streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu on May 18. "Excited to announce the City of Lover Concert! We filmed my show in Paris in September and thought it'd be fun to share it with you. May 17 at 10p ET on @abcnetwork and available the next day on @hulu and @disneyplus !#TaylorSwiftCityOfLover" the 30-year-old singer tweeted on Friday. The musical event gives fans unprecedented access to behind-the-scenes moments with the artist and marks her only concert performance this year, ABC Network said in a press ...

Pakistan on Saturday began easing the month-long lockdown despite a steady rise in the number of the coronavirus cases which rose to 27,474 after health authorities reported a big jump of 1,637 infections and 24 deaths in a single day. Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that Pakistan would begin easing its nationwide lockdown in a phase-wise manner by allowing various businesses to open up from Saturday, citing the economic crisis due to the shutdown, which was enforced in the country in March end. The first phase of easing lockdown began as the government announced removing restrictions by allowing more business to open and operate from dawn to 5pm. The federal government was trying to provide maximum relief to the people but due to the current economic conditions of the country, the lockdown must be eased, the Express Tribune quoted Khan as saying. Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and Adviser to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Ajmal Wazir said the provincial government .

Singapore on Saturday saw a drop in its daily tally of new coronavirus cases as the city-state reported 753 new COVID-19 cases, taking the country's total to 22,460, majority of them foreign nationals, including Indians, living in dormitories. On Friday, Singapore reported 768 new cases of coronavirus. The Health Ministry said the vast majority of the 753 new cases reported on Saturday are work permit holders (foreigners) residing in worker dormitories. Nine cases are Singapore citizens or permanent residents (foreigners). As of Friday, 19,232 of the 323,000 foreign workers living in dormitories, or nearly six per cent, have tested positive for COVID-19, reported The Straits Times. Singapore had placed 18,402 coronavirus patients in isolation while 1,245 are hospitalised by Friday, according to a data from the Health Ministry. The Ministry said 1,245 cases were still in hospital while 20 people have died of the disease. Singapore currently has the highest number of coronavirus cases ..

An Indian teenager here has recorded songs in over 20 languages, including Arabic, to spread awareness on the COVID-19, saying music has always been her choice for effective communication, according to a media report on Saturday. Suchetha Satish's songs advise the people to keep distance, maintain cleanliness and practice hand washing regularly, the Khaleej Times reported on Saturday. Satish, who hails from Kerala, released her first coronavirus awareness song on March 16 in English, titled 'Say No To Panic', the daily reported. Since then, 14-year-old Satish, who holds the world record for singing in most number of languages in a concert, has recorded the awareness songs in Malayalam, Bengali, Arabic, Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Marathi, Gujrati, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Himachali, Odiya, Manipuri, Nepali, Urdu, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Kashmiri and Sanskrit. Her songs in Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Assamese were used by the Kerala government in its 'Break the Chain' campaign, the .

Crouching over the sun-drenched soil, Alfred Abayev picks up a charred fragment of a Soviet warplane downed in a World War II battle with advancing Nazi forces. You can see it was burning, he says, pointing at the weathered trace of a red star. Abayev and members of his search team rummage the steppe for remains of the Red Army soldiers who fell in the autumn of 1942 in fierce fighting with Nazi troops pushing toward the Caspian Sea south of Stalingrad. Stiff resistance by the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht onslaught in the steppes of Kalmykia, and months later the enemy's forces were encircled in Stalingrad and surrendered, a major defeat for the Nazis that marked a turning point in World War II. The search for remains of fallen Red Army soldiers near Khulkhuta, in Kalmykia, a southern province that lies between the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, is part of a broad effort by myriad volunteer groups across Russia to pay tribute to fallen World War II soldiers. Russia's losses stood .

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. I t 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. Four days later, the Iraqi immigrant got seriously ill with COVID-19. Still not able to return to work, Khalaf is part of the growing evidence that those in immigrant communities in the Nordic nations are being hit harder by the pandemic than the general population. Sweden took a relatively soft approach to fighting the coronavirus, one that attracted international attention. Large gatherings were banned but restaurants and schools for younger children have stayed open. The government has urged social distancing, and Swedes have largely complied. The country has paid a heavy price, with 2,769 ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory day, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus pandemic. Putin on Saturday laid flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier just outside the Kremlin walls and gave a short address honouring the valour and suffering of the Soviet army during the war. Victory Day is Russia's most important secular holiday and this year's observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the 75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of measures to stifle the spread of the virus. The only vestige of the conventional show of military might was a flyover of central Moscow by 75 warplanes and helicopters. In the final events of the VE Day commemoration in Western Europe, which took place a day earlier, Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate was illuminated late ...

A two-week course of an antiviral therapy, started within seven days of experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, may improve clinical recovery of patients and reduce their hospital stay duration, according to the first randomised trial of this triple drug combination. The study, published in the journal The Lancet, involved 127 adults from six public hospitals in Hong Kong, and tested the effectiveness of an antiviral drug combination in reducing the load of the novel coronavirus in their bodies. According to the researchers, including those from the University of Hong Kong, treatment involving combination of the drugs interferon beta-1b, plus the antiviral therapy lopinavir-ritonavir and ribavirin, is better at reducing the viral load than lopinavir-ritonavir alone. They stressed on the need for larger phase 3 trials to examine the effectiveness of this triple combination in critically ill patients, adding that these early findings were only observed in patients with mild to moderate ...

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 Gmez said he was inspired to find a way to help after watching events unfold recently in nearby Ecuador. Families in the coastal city of Guayaquil waited with dead loved ones in their homes for days last month as COVID-19 cases surged. Many could not find or were unable to afford a wood coffin, using donated cardboard ones instead. Gmez said he plans to donate 10 of his new beds to Colombia's Amazonas department, where resources are in short supply. So far there is no indication whether the beds will be put to use and no orders have been placed.

The number of people dying from the coronavirus in Ohio's nursing homes has continued to increase at an alarming pace. Close to 500 residents of long-term care centers have died of COVID-19 in the past three weeks, according to data released by the state this week. That's nearly double the total reported for the previous two weeks. The increase in deaths could be attributed to a significant jump or a backlog of cases being added over the past week, said Melanie Amato, a spokeswoman for the state health department. Since mid-April, more than 4,300 nursing home residents and staff members have tested positive for the virus. The numbers don't tell the entire story of how the virus has devastated nursing homes during the pandemic because the Ohio Department of Health has only released the totals for just the past three weeks. Before that, the state didn't require local health departments to report nursing home deaths linked to the virus.

A 40-year-old Indian-origin woman in Singapore was charged with five counts, including use of criminal force, in a court here on Saturday for refusing to wear a face mask for protection against COVID-19 and assaulting a police officer who tried to ascertain her identity. Kasturi Govindasamy Retnamswamy was arrested after the incident that happened at a shopping mall on May 7 and was captured on video. Retnamswamy, who is a Singaporean, was remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for psychiatric evaluation after the incident, reported The Straits Times. She was taken to a court on Saturday and faced five charges, including use of abusive words and criminal force against a public servant. The next hearing is scheduled for May 22 after her remand in the IMH. According to the police statement on Friday, the woman insulted the mall staff and hurled abuses at a security officer who was trying to get her to put on her mask correctly. The widely-shared video of the incident shows a ..

When Eliud Kipchoge made history by beating the two-hour mark for the marathon, the Kenyan was wearing a pair of controversial Nike running shoes that has sent rival companies scrambling to play catch-up in a business worth billions of dollars. The likes of Adidas, Asics, Brooks, Hoka, New Balance and Saucony have recently released or are about to unveil their own carbon-fibre versions of running shoes. Critics claim the new shoes are the equivalent of mechanical doping, while supporters hail them as a revolutionary technical advance in footwear after decades of stagnation. Nike said its Vaporfly range, unveiled in 2016, was an "example of how product design can capture the fascination of an entire sporting community and, more broadly, inspire new benchmarks of athletic potential", boasting an improvement in times by up to four percent. Elite athletes wearing versions of the Vaporfly, the carbon plates of which lend a propulsive sensation to every stride, have set a rash of personal ..

Mounting a strong defence of the ruling Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping has said the COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership and the country's socialist political system can overcome any challenge. Xi's comments came as China faced global criticism for its initial inaction to act against the novel coronavirus, which according to Chinese officials emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year. Pressure is also mounting on Beijing to agree for an international probe on the origins of the vicious virus, including from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as claimed by the US leadership. China curbed the spread of the coronavirus in over a month and brought COVID-19 under control at its first epicentre in Wuhan in about three months, Xi, also the General Secretary of the CPC, said at a symposium held on Friday to get suggestions from non-ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) parties on COVID-19 prevention and control. He termed the