The economy may have slowed and normal life come to a standstill, but in the world of hair, a follicle free-for-all unencumbered by coronavirus has Americans asking one critical question -- to cut or not to cut?
For Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, the answer was clear: "I thought I would do it myself but I thought it would be a disaster."
She only admitted to having had her hair cut after being caught red-handed when her hairdresser posted on Facebook that giving the mayor a trim had been a pleasure: cue the chorus of public shaming.
In her defense, Lightfoot invoked her visibility and the fact that the hairdresser wore a mask, but the accusations of privilege and elitism poured in.
Stuck at home for several weeks, Americans are finding their normally carefully coiffed 'dos growing roots or even transforming into mullets.
Rather than despair, many are using their intriguing growth patterns and bird's nest-like locks as an antidote to tragedy, posting jokes, memes, video montages and ...

To cut or not to cut? In US, quarantine slows everything but hair growth

PTI Automatic

This is TikTok's time. The social video platform which was already a favorite of teens is increasingly being used by adults looking for ways to pass the time during coronavirus lockdowns.
Users post short videos -- no longer than 60 seconds but often as short as 15 -- to showcase their bite-size dance skills or share relatable experiences with a humorous twist.
The application, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, saw 65 million worldwide downloads in March, according to analytics site SensorTower.
In addition to the existing 800 million reported in January by DataReportal, the app is nearing a billion users -- though TikTok itself does not publish such data.
And though teens have been posting on the platform for months, it seems adults with more free time -- as much of the world is encouraged to stay at home to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus -- are finally catching on.
Cecile, stuck at home in Paris with her six- and three-year-old children, was intrigued when a friend .

TikTok's time: video platform sees appeal growing during lockdowns

South Korea's flag carrier Korean Air will put 70 per cent of its 19,000 staff on furlough, it said, as it scrambles to cope with the coronavirus pandemic that has brought global aviation to a standstill.
The airline industry is among the sectors worst hit by the virus and the ensuing travel restrictions, with thousands of flights cancelled, routes cut, and companies facing financial turmoil.
Korean Air is the flagship of the Hanjin group, one of the multifaceted, family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebols that dominate business in South Korea and played a key part in its rise to become the world's 12th-largest economy.
Most of its staff will go on leave from April 16 for six months in response to "deteriorating business circumstances", Korean Air said in a statement.
According to normal South Korean practice, the workers will receive 70 per cent of their normal pay, with most of it -- reportedly up to 90 per cent -- funded by a government scheme for industries in need of ...

Korean Air puts 70 per cent of staff on leave

Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey said Tuesday he was committing $1 billion of his personal fortune to coronavirus relief through his philanthropic fund.
Dorsey said in a series of tweets that he would transfer his equity in his digital payments group Square to his limited liability corporation Start Small, contributing around 28 percent of his overall wealth.
"Why now? The needs are increasingly urgent, and I want to see the impact in my lifetime," Dorsey said.
"I hope this inspires others to do something similar. Life is too short, so let's do everything we can today to help people now." The move could be the largest from a single individual for coronavirus relief and comes with the pandemic spanning the globe and inflicting a heavy toll in lives and economic devastation on the United States.
Dorsey said that after the pandemic ends, the fund would focus on health and education for girls and "universal basic income" efforts.
Dorsey, who is CEO of both Twitter and ...

Twitter's Jack Dorsey pledges $1 bn for COVID-19 relief effort

The Dutch football federation (KNVB) has said that it was hoping the top two divisions would restart on June 19 following their suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision would keep the Dutch league in line with UEFA, which has warned teams risk exclusion from the next Champions League if their domestic competitions are ended prematurely.
The KNVB revealed its plans on Tuesday during a video conference with professional clubs and other major stakeholders, although leading sides including Ajax, AZ Alkmaar and PSV Eindhoven have called for the season to be ended.
The Belgian league recommended last week the current season be declared finished early with the present table accepted as final, becoming the first European league to take such a measure.
"At the explicit request of the clubs, we have explained what it would look like if the RIVM (health authorities) and the government gave the green light to restart certain activities in the Netherlands," the KNVB said in a ...

Dutch FA plans for league to resume on June 19

England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler has raised more than 65,000 pound (USD 80,000) to help fight the coronavirus by auctioning off his World Cup final shirt.
Buttler's shirt, which he wore when completing the last-ball run-out that saw England beat New Zealand at Lord's last year, was sold to raise money for specialist heart and lung centres provided by the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals in London.
Buttler, who earlier in the showpiece match had hit a fifty and batted in the Super Over, put his long-sleeve keeping jersey up for sale on eBay a week ago.
By the time the auction closed on Tuesday, the shirt had attracted 82 bids with the winner paying 65,100 pound.
Buttler, speaking on Monday, said: "It's a very special shirt but I think it takes on extra meaning with it being able to hopefully go to the emergency cause.

Buttler's World Cup final shirt raises 65,000 pound for hospital appeal

Tottenham Hotspur have reminded players of their responsibilities during Britain's coronavirus lockdown after pictures and video on social media emerged of manager Jose Mourinho and several members of his squad that appeared to show them flouting social-distancing rules.
Portuguese boss Mourinho was pictured training with Tanguy Ndombele on Hadley Common, while Davinson Sanchez and Ryan Sessegnon were seen running side by side in the same public park in north London.
Spurs full-back Serge Aurier also posted a video of himself jogging alongside another person on Instagram.
The Premier League has been suspended since mid-March due to the spread of COVID-19.
The outbreak has seen the British government introduce a strict series of measures which, while they allow individuals to go out for a walk or exercise once a day, state they must remain at least two metres apart unless they are with a member of the same household.
"All of our players have been reminded to respect social distancing ..

Tottenham issue warning after Mourinho and players seen training

Footballers and clubs in France's top two leagues have reached a non-binding agreement over a "temporary" pay cut during the coronavirus crisis, the national players' union (UNFP) has said.
"We approved the recommendation this morning," UNFP president Philippe Piat told AFP on Tuesday.
"The idea is that players defer a part of their April wages to allow clubs to cope," during what he called a "dramatic health situation".
Club and player representatives agreed upon a joint "recommendation" that would see footballers accept a temporarily reduced wage, which they will receive once money from TV rights is paid.
Broadcasters Canal+ and beIN Sports have for the time being suspended the payments, the clubs' main source of revenue, after the season was put on hold last month indefinitely.
The pay cuts will be calculated on a sliding scale starting at 20 percent, with the highest earners -- those who pocket over 100,000 euros monthly -- facing a 50 per cent reduction.
Players making less than .

French footballers strike deal to reduce wages

Tottenham Hotspur and England great Jimmy Greaves is being treated in hospital, the Premier League club has announced.
But there was no mention in their brief statement of whether the former striker was suffering from the coronavirus, or indeed the exact nature of the 80-year-old's current condition.
"We can confirm that our record goalscorer Jimmy Greaves is currently being treated in hospital," said a statement on Spurs' official Twitter feed on Tuesday.
"We are in touch with his family and will provide further updates in due course. Everybody at the club sends their best wishes to Jimmy and his family."
Greaves is understood to have been in poor health since suffering a stroke nearly five years ago.
A prolific goalscorer throughout his career, Greaves also played for Chelsea and West Ham, but his greatest success came at Tottenham during a golden era for the London side that saw him score a club record 266 goals in 379 matches from 1961-70.
For decades Greaves held the record for ..

Tottenham and England great Greaves in hospital

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Over 230 crew, 79 per cent, on board in the naval aircraft carrier tested positive of coronavirus.

US navy chief resigns over handling of Covid-19 outbreak on naval carrier

Business Standard

China and other nations could be burdened with costly and environmentally damaging coal power for decades if they forge ahead with new capacity to boost their economics after the COVID-19 pandemic, research showed Wednesday.
While extreme social distancing measures in the world's largest economies aimed at stopping the virus are likely to result in a short-term cut in global emissions, government subsidies are still driving plans to build nearly 500 GW of new coal-fired power plants.
The bill for this is set to top $630 billion.
A study by the Carbon Tracker financial think tank found that 46 percent of coal plants throughout the world would run at a loss in 2020, rising to 52 percent by 2030.
With renewables and natural gas already cheaper than coal in many places, it said that 90 percent of global capacity was already only viable due to non-market financial support.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that electricity from coal must fall by 80 percent by 2030 in order 

Post-COVID-19 stimulus risks global coal 'lock-in'

Like many expectant mothers, Gina Conley is nervous. But there is a lot more to worry about these days, with a virulent outbreak overwhelming hospitals and convincing pregnant women to opt for the relative safety of a home birth.
"I won't have to go to a hospital where there are potentially a lot of sick people and staff that have been exposed to the coronavirus," says the 32-year-old from North Carolina.
The pandemic has torn through one country after another, laying waste to economies, roiling public institutions and notching around 400,000 infections in the United States -- more than 12,000 of them fatal.
As hospital wards become battlefields in the war against this looming threat, choosing where to give birth is a quandary many expectant mothers did not expect to have to face.
Fear of infection, staff and drug shortages, and increasingly strict rules on visitors are leading more and more women to consider shunning hospitals.
But soon-to-be moms must weigh fears for their newborns .

Pandemic drives expectant moms in US to embrace home births

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was spending a second night in intensive care battling the coronavirus which has infected more than 55,000 across the country and killed nearly 6,200.
"He stayed at work for you... now pray at home for him," The Sun tabloid splashed across its front page Wednesday while the Daily Express said: "Boris 'will pull through'."
Deputising for Johnson, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he was "confident he'll pull through, because if there's one thing I know about this prime minister, he's a fighter and he'll be back, leading us through this crisis in short order".
In an update Tuesday evening, the prime minister's spokesman said his "condition is stable and he remains in intensive care for close monitoring." He earlier said the 55-year-old Conservative leader was receiving "standard oxygen treatment and breathing without any other assistance" and had not required a ventilator.
Johnson is the most high-profile government leader to become infected with ..

Britain's Johnson spends second night in intensive care

A Paraguayan judge on Tuesday ordered the release of Brazilian football great Ronaldinho and his brother into house arrest at a hotel in downtown Asuncion.
Judge Gustavo Amarilla told reporters that he had ordered the "continuation of house arrest in a hotel for Ronaldinho and his brother." They were jailed exactly a month ago on Monday to await trial on charges of using false passports to enter Paraguay. Lawyers for the men posted bail of $1.6 million.
The ruling means the brothers can swap their grim police cell block -- which also housed Paraguay's former soccer federation chief and the ex-speaker of the lower house of parliament -- for a plush Colonial-style hotel in central Asuncion.
The brochure of the refurbished 107-room Palmaroga hotel, located in the capital's historic center, describes it as offering "a seamless blend of early 1900s Renaissance grace and modern comfort as well as luxury."
"I have the assurance of the hotel managers that they, at their own expense, can ...

Paraguay court releases Ronaldinho into house arrest in Asuncion hotel

President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to cut US funding to the World Health Organization, accusing it of bias toward China during the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump told reporters he was "going to put a very powerful hold on" funding to WHO, the UN body whose biggest funding source is the United States.
"We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO," said Trump, who pursues an "America First" agenda and has previously criticized other UN and multilateral agencies.
He gave no details about how much money would be withheld and minutes later during the same press conference he said: "I'm not saying I'm going to do it."
"We will look at ending funding," he added.
According to Trump, the WHO "seems to be very biased toward China. That's not right."
His comments built on an earlier statement on Twitter in which he accused the WHO of being "very China centric."
Trump asked why the WHO had given "such a faulty recommendation," apparently referring to the UN body's advice against ...

Trump threatens withholding funds from UN world health body

A deadly Pacific cyclone bore down on Fiji Wednesday after leaving a trail of destruction in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
Tropical Cyclone Harold weakened slightly overnight from a scale-topping category five to a four, but was still lashing Fiji with winds of up to 240 kilometres per hour (150 miles per hour), forecasters said.
The official NaDraki weather service said the cyclone was offshore south of Fiji's main island Viti Levu, but passing closer to land than initially expected.  Despite the downgrade, it said Harold remained "extremely dangerous" and advised residents in the island's south to shelter in churches, schools or other substantial buildings.
"Its intensity makes it capable of causing destruction to property and infrastructure, and more significantly, serious injury and loss of life," the service warned.
Residents in Suva said the capital was already experiencing strong winds and heavy rains, with the storm's impact expected to peak later Wednesday.
Harold already .

Pacific's monster storm Harold moves on to Fiji

Suddenly, it's no longer the "Wuhan virus." The United States and China have reached a truce in a vitriolic feud over the coronavirus pandemic, with the two powers each seeing at least a tactical interest in cooling down.
President Donald Trump, hardly known for the delicacy of his word choices, has dropped his provocative term "Chinese virus" and held back from criticizing Beijing's response since a telephone call, on March 26 US time, with his counterpart Xi Jinping.
And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- who so insisted on saying "Wuhan virus" that the Group of Seven foreign ministers could not issue a joint statement -- has been talking of cooperation.
"We know that this is a global pandemic, and this is the time for every country to work together to resolve that," Pompeo told reporters Tuesday when asked about China.
Beijing infuriated the United States last month when a foreign ministry spokesman spread a conspiracy theory that US troops brought the virus to Wuhan.
Cui Tiankai, ..

'Wuhan virus' no more: US and China in truce

The new coronavirus isn't biased about who it infects -- so why does data emerging from some states suggest that African Americans are bearing the brunt of the pandemic in the US?
Experts say blacks are disproportionately impacted by underlying health conditions linked to poverty, face discrimination in medical care, and are more likely to work jobs that require them to leave their home.
"We know that blacks are more likely to have diabetes, heart disease, lung disease," the nation's top doctor, Surgeon General Jerome Adams told CBS News on Tuesday.
These chronic illnesses, which are in turn linked to poverty and structural racism, can lead to more serious forms of the COVID-19 disease.
Adams, who is himself black and has high blood pressure and asthma, added: "I represent that legacy of growing up poor and black in America.
"And I, and many black Americans, are at higher risk for COVID."
There is no nationwide data available on COVID-19 cases by race, but a pattern of ...

Why African Americans are dying at higher rates from COVID-19

US Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday over his mishandling of an outbreak of the coronavirus on the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced.
Modly stepped down five days after removing the Roosevelt's captain, Brett Crozier, for writing a letter -- that was leaked to the media -- describing the virus-struck vessel's dire situation and alleging the Pentagon was not paying adequate attention to it.
The removal of Crozier, respected in the military and popular with his crew, was seen as heavy-handed and decided too quickly, before an investigation was carried out.
Modly sparked outrage Monday after he flew from Washington to Guam, where the warship is docked, to defend his actions to the crew.
In a forceful, profanity-laced speech, he accused Crozier of "betrayal," called him "too naive or too stupid" and suggested the sailors' love for him was misplaced.
Hours later, back in Washington, Modly issued an apology, but President ...

US navy chief out over handling of ship virus outbreak

The German government said Tuesday that it will accept 50 minors from migrant camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios.
The transfers could begin next week, the interior ministry said in a statement.  Tens of thousands of asylum-seekers live in dire conditions in Greek camps. The conditions have worsened recently due to outbreaks of coronavirus.
The worst congestion occurs in camps on five Aegean islands near Turkey where there are more than 36,000 people for fewer than 6,100 places.
Luxembourg has already agreed to take in 12 minors.
France, Portugal, Finland, Lithuania, Croatia and Ireland are also part of an EU programme to take in some of the 1,600 vulnerable minors in Greek camps.
The children and adolescents accepted by Germany "will at first be placed in quarantine for two weeks," before being housed in various regions, the ministry said.
The decision is expected to be rubberstamped at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The European initiative was launched last month by the .

Germany to accept 50 minors from Greek migrant camps

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Tuesday that donations of medical equipment by foreign companies like Huawei in the fight against the coronavirus will have no influence on future government policy.
"We will be receiving donations of equipment from various companies and we're happy that people are offering that," he said.
"But no, we do not expect this to have any impact" on future decisions, he said.
"This will not affect our decision on other issues in the years to come." The prime minister was asked if donations to Canada by Huawei could influence his government's policies toward the Chinese telecoms giant, which is at the center of a protracted diplomatic crisis between Ottawa and Beijing.
At a time when the world faces a shortage of masks, Huawei gave Canada more than a million masks, 30,000 face shields and 50,000 pairs of gloves, according to the Globe and Mail daily.
A Huawei spokesperson in Quebec confirmed those figures in a statement to AFP.
"Numerous companies 

AFP

AFP

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