Dear Editor,I am beyond concerned that it has taken now for the minister of health to become alarmed that only 35 of 185 nursing homes in Jamaica are registered.

Dear Editor,The United States' debt is some US$25 trillion. This debt grew by US$1 trillion in 35 days (April 1 to May 5). The US will likely not be able to permanently stop quantitative easing (money creation). This level of debt is similar to the US debt after World War II, but the US is no longer the factory of the world.

Dear Editor,The COVID-19 pandemic has taken us all by surprise. There are currently approaching the 500 mark for number of COVID-19 cases in Jamaica. Due to the outbreak of this virus there has been a reduction in job availability as companies have closed to combat the virus and promote social distancing.Many believe that it has made life harder, but, newsflash, it has not rendered us useless.

Over twenty people have been killed in a landslide in Costa Rica, due to heavy rainfall in the Central American country. The disaster caused huge damage in both in the Pacific coast and in a suburb of the capital San José. Together with local churches, OM Costa Rica is organising help for families who lost their homes.

OM Costa Rica has been hoping to initiate a sponsorship programme in the indigenous reservation of Talamanca. Now, they’re finally starting to see it happen.

OM teams in Costa Rica and El Salvador take Christmas to approximately 2,000 children during the run up to Christmas.

AROUND five people a day are being seen at Covid hubs across Scotland as demand for the service declines.

The nutritional and immunologic properties of human milk, along with clear evidence of dose-dependent optimal health outcomes for both mothers and infants, provide a compelling rationale to support exclusive breastfeeding. US women increasingly intend to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months. Because establishing lactation can be challenging, exclusivity is often compromised in hopes of preventing feeding-related neonatal complications, potentially affecting the continuation and duration of breastfeeding. Risk factors for impaired lactogenesis are identifiable and common. Clinicians must be able to recognize normative patterns of exclusive breastfeeding in the first week while proactively identifying potential challenges. In this review, we provide new evidence from the past 10 years on the following topics relevant to exclusive breastfeeding: milk production and transfer, neonatal weight and output assessment, management of glucose and bilirubin, immune development and the microbiome, supplementation, and health system factors. We focus on the early days of exclusive breastfeeding in healthy newborns ≥35 weeks’ gestation managed in the routine postpartum unit. With this evidence-based clinical review, we provide detailed guidance in identifying medical indications for early supplementation and can inform best practices for both birthing facilities and providers.

The flow of homes coming on to the UK market is at its weakest level in three years as "endless wrangling about Brexit" continues, according to surveyors.

Having car insurance is a legal requirement for motorists, but whether it’s valid or not depends on how accurate the current information your insurance company holds is.

Baker’s Delight

When I first moved to the country, I anticipated taking long sturdy walks every few days, filling my lungs with fresh air, and gradually – proudly – achieving the weathered complexion of a Norwegian fisherman. Such is the variation in outdoor complexions in rural parts, Farrow & Ball could start a new range: shepherd’s sunburn, builder’s brick red, farmer’s frozen snout.

Sunday, April 19, 2020.

Strimmers, bonfires and netting are among garden hazards that can harm hedgehogs, so take precautions during Hedgehog Awareness Week and beyond.

OM MTI shares the love of Jesus and empowers children and families in Cambodia through English classes that prepare students for future employment.

Over 120 children from the Minsk area enjoyed football-based activities on the day of the Belarus Super Cup match, highlighting the link between grassroots and elite football.

If you can't see elderly parents, or friends with medical conditions, what can you do to keep in touch? You can send a letter, of course, or make a landline phone call, but video calls allow you to speak and see each other.

Someone is mortally wounded, shot to bits by a stormtrooper, hacked to pieces by a zombie, legs crushed by a Sergio Ramos tackle, or crippled when their go-kart careered into a cartoon tree.

OMEGA Diagnostics shares jumped 77 per cent after it announced it is part of the UK rapid test consortium working to jointly develop and manufacture an antibody test.

A BIOTECH veteran has hailed a Glasgow firm that claims to have discovered two separate potential treatments for Covid-19 patients for use before they are put on ventilators.

A man has been found dead outside of a police station in Ayrshire.

Clachan Bridge

Celtic Connections

WHEN Malian quartet Songhoy Blues performed at last year's Celtic Connections, audiences were treated to a form of music appealingly dubbed “desert blues”. A user-friendly term, it sounds like it could have been dreamed up by a marketing agency and applied equally well to a perfume, a brand of jeans or a chain of upmarket Tex-Mex restaurants.

IT’S almost time for the last supper. Though not quite. Another 24 hours will have to pass before the concluding morsel is munched, the final nibble on the edge of no more. After that, a little part of Scotland’s living history will die.

5G tablets are on the way, and Samsung's Galaxy Tab S6 could be repackaged as one of the first. The South Korean company accidentally listed the 5G-ready model on its website. Now, it's only a matter of time before the Galaxy Tab S6 5G goes official.

Organize your phone, tablet, and computer with these quick and easy tips from productivity expert Jill Duffy. Investing just a little time here at the beginning of the year could make a big difference for all of 2020.

For a limited time, the 7-inch Fire 7 Kids Edition is $40 off while the 8- and 10-inch models are both $50 off. These tablets make a great gift for 3-to-12-year olds.

The popular Roomba 675 is just $199 today, the 8-inch Amazon Fire HD 8 is only $50, and the 2TB Crucial MX500 2.5-inch SSD is back on sale for $200.

The cartridge was meant to upgrade the processor and GPU in the Surface Hub 2S so as to allow rotation and multiple hubs to work together.

Can't get your hands on your own iPad? Kids love tablets, but which is the right one for them? Check out our top picks to keep your kids educated and entertained.

The American politician John Nance Garner is better remembered for something he said rather than anything he did as Franklin Roosevelt’s vice-president.

In “Painting Nationalism Red?”, an engaging new pamphlet published by Democratic Left Scotland, the journalist Neal Ascherson pays tribute to Tom Nairn as Scotland’s “pre-eminent political intellectual”.

Shortly before the second general election of 1974, the late John P Mackintosh attempted to explain the rise of the Scottish National Party to a predominantly left-wing (and English) audience in an essay for the New Statesman.

A few days after a majority of Britons backed Brexit in June 2016, this newspaper reported that Nicola Sturgeon had been in talks with London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo.

The Scottish Labour Party, I think it’s fair to say, hasn’t had a good decade.

“Scotland”, declared a young Alex Salmond in May 1975, “knows from bitter experience what treatment is in store for a powerless region of a common market.”

In his new book, “The End of British Party Politics?”, the political scientist Roger Awan-Scully captures the paradox of last year’s general election in Scotland.

The sight of Scottish ministers boarding flights to far-flung destinations in order to “sell Scotland to the world” has been a familiar one for more than half a century.

Today in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister will explain her decision to authorise airstrikes against Syria alongside France and the United States.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an “in conversation” event with the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild at Harvard University.

In this country, where the dank, grim days of winter are as short as a resigned sigh, the onset of some decent, dry spring weather doesn’t half raise the morale. Well, it would if the coronavirus wasn’t lurking all over the parish.

To say that amateur golf in Scotland has been slow to adapt to change is putting it kindly. But where the rise of the nomads, the Equality Act, the credit crunch and repeated faltering reform efforts have failed, perhaps Covid-19 will finally be the shock that thrusts the sector into a meaningful if seriously belated overhaul.

THE Scottish Government has been formally approached by Swedish architects proposing that a bridge to Northern Ireland can be built ... and combined with 140 wind turbines to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

It crosses one of the most scenic waterways in Scotland and is the second busiest by volume of passengers in the country.

LOCKDOWN may start easing soon, but it seems likely to be a long time yet before any of us find ourselves in an actual physical pub. It’s not of course the booze we’re missing – we can get plenty of that – but the company, the conviviality, the atmosphere, the feeling that, in the late hours, almost anything might kick off. So, for those who cry inside every time they walk past their closed-down local, or wake-up having dreamed of standing with a pint at the bar, here’s a few ways you

The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill got the Royal Assent this week. It was then solemnly signed, sealed and ratified by Ursula von der Leyen, the new President of the European Commission. We’re finally out.

“It's not the end; it's not even the beginning of the end; but it is perhaps the end of the beginning”. Churchill's famous wartime speech after the battle of El Alamein in November 1942 was an ambiguous rallying cry. After all, by saying it was only the beginning, he was suggesting that there could be worse to come.

Chief technology officers are facing an unprecedented test of digital preparedness due to the coronavirus pandemic, struggling with shortfalls of available learning devices and huge Wi-Fi access challenges.

As millions of students nationwide start to settle into virtual learning programs to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a massive new research analysis sounds another note of caution about the effects of exposing significantly more screen time.