Rashmi Vinayak, an assistant professor in the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department, has won a five-year, $650,000 career development award, the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award for young faculty members. The award will support Vinayak’s work to improve the resource and energy efficiency of large-scale data centers, which together serve as the backbone for internet-based services, cloud services and data analytics platforms. “Such large-scale systems are prone to failures and unavailability, and therefore have a high degree of redundancy built into them to provide resilience against such events,” the Indian American researcher noted in the release. “While redundancy provides resilience, it comes with a significant overhead in terms of resource and energy requirements. The overarching goal of this project is to design resource- and energy-efficient redundancy algorithms for data centers using tools based on information theory and coding theory.”
PIO lawyer to step down from top post
Seema Nanda has announced her decision to step down as the CEO of the Democratic National Committee, the top administrative position in the main Opposition party, ahead of the presidential elections in November. Nanda, 48, became the first Indian-American to be appointed as the CEO of the Democratic National Committee in June, 2018. She did not give reasons for leaving the top position in the party. Reports say Nanda’s sudden exit from the DNC was part of the effort of the former US vice-president Joe Biden who is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
Pak navy test-fires anti-ship missiles
The Pakistan navy on Saturday successfully test-fired a series of anti-ship missiles in the North Arabian Sea, an official said. The missiles were fired from surface ships, fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, the navy’s spokesman Rear Admiral Arshid Javed said. “The anti-ship missiles were fired at the sea level by warships and aircraft,” he said. The demonstration is a testament to the Pakistan’s operational capability, the official said.
Pak woman dies of starvation amid lockdown
A pregnant woman has died of starvation in Pakistan's Sindh province amid the coronavirus lockdown imposed in the country, according to media reports. Sughra Bibi, 30, died in Jhudo town of Sindh's Mirpur Khas district last week, reports said. Bibi's husband Allah Baksh said he is a daily wager and due to the lockdown could not find work and was facing problems in feeding his family, which includes six children. Baksh claimed he did not even have money to bury his wife. Local residents raised money through donations for Bibi's burial, the report said. The Sindh government announced that they were investigation the starvation-related death. Pakistan is under lockdown for over a month now to check the spread of coronavirus. The government has unveiled a number of schemes for daily wager earners who are the worst hit economically in this curfew period. However, there have been reports of discrimination in the distribution of ration.
Another assassin of Bangabandhu arrested
Risaldar Moslemuddin, convicted of killing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has been arrested in West Bengal in India, media reports said. Moslem, who had long been absconding, was arrested from North 24 Parganas in West Bengal, days after Abdul Majed, another killer of Bangabandhu was arrested from Kolkata and hanged in Dhaka, reports said. Moslem, one of the 12 assassins who were awarded death sentence for the 1975 killing, fled the country after Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League came to power in 1996. However, the Bangladesh government said they are not aware of such development, Dhaka Tribune reported. The country's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said: "As you are hearing, we are also hearing (the news of the arrest). But there is no confirmation." "Our NSI (National Security Intelligence) does not know anything. Our SB (Special Branch) also does not know anything," he said.
Trump skips questions at coronavirus briefing
A day after he floated the idea of using disinfectants and light to treat Covid-19, President Donald Trump declined to take any questions at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House. The briefing - which can sometimes last about two hours - was over in just over 20 minutes, following remarks from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and FDA head Stephen Hahn. The two top government doctors charged with combating the coronavirus crisis, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, were not in attendance. Last week, Trump drew widespread criticism for suggesting light, heat and injecting disinfectants could be used to treat coronavirus patients. Accusing the media of asking hostile questions and claiming he never said the coronavirus was a hoax even though video footage exists of him saying it, Trump canned his daily press briefing saying it is “not worth the time & effort. What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth,” Trump said.
US rapper on dialysis due to coronavirus
American rapper Scarface has revealed that he has suffered kidney failure due to novel coronavirus and is on dialysis. The musician, who opened up about his diagnosis on March 26, gave an update on his health in a virtual conversation with rapper Willie D which was posted on YouTube. “I’m glad to be alive. I fought Covid double bilateral pneumonia - both lungs - and kidney failure. I just got out of the hospital on April 20,” Scarface said. “That’s my new lifeline,” he added pointing at his dialysis port. “I gotta change my entire diet, I gotta do dialysis four days a week... I was inches away from death,” he added. Anthony Fauci, top US infectious disease expert, jokingly said that Brad Pitt should play him on ‘Saturday Night Live’ weeks ago. The show delivered in its latest episode. Pitt portrayed Fauci and tried to set the record straight regarding President Trump’s remarks on the outbreak. Regarding the president’s claim that a vaccine would be developed relatively soon, he says: ‘Relatively soon is an interesting phrase. Relative to the entire history of earth, sure, the vaccine is going to come real fast.’
Storms, tornado kill at least six in two US states
Severe storms and a tornado swept through the US states of Oklahoma and Texas, killing at least six people and injuring dozens, officials said. Three people died and at least 20 were injured when a tornado touched down in Onalaska, Texas, emergency officials said. Onalaska is about 90 miles north of Houston. Two people were also killed in southern Oklahoma, while local media reported that a woman died in storm in Louisiana. "On April 22, a tornado struck the city of Onalaska and other portions of Polk and San Jacinto counties, and possibly even far eastern Walker County", Houston's National Weather Service (NWS) said in a statement. The tornado touched down near Oklahoma's border with Texas. NWS said it will be sending crews to survey the path of the "Onalaska tornado". A disaster warning was issued in Polk County, where Onalaska is located. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the state had deployed response teams and medical resources to provide assistance.
Harvard defies Trump, says it will keep $8.6m stimulus grant
Harvard University said it plans to keep an $8.6 million grant it received as part of a stimulus package to blunt the economic impact of the Covid-19 lockdown, contradicting US President Trump who pledged the university would return it. Speaking at a briefing, Trump pointed to the institution’s ample endowment - worth nearly $41billion - as the reason why it should hand over the money. “Harvard is going to pay back the money and they shouldn’t be taking it,” Trump said. In a statement issued after the briefing, Harvard said it planned “to direct 100% of the funds to financial assistance to students, and will not be using any of the funds to cover institutional costs.”
China pledges $30 mn more for WHO's coronavirus fight
China has promised to donate $30 million more to the World Health Organization (WHO), which is seeking more than $1 billion to fund its battle against the coronavirus pandemic. The pledge comes about a week after US President Donald Trump suspended funding to the WHO and accused the Geneva-based organisation of promoting Chinese "disinformation" about the virus, which began in Wuhan last year. "At this crucial moment, supporting WHO is supporting multilateralism and global solidarity," Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman of China's foreign ministry, said. The donation aimed to support the global fight against Covid-19, in particular strengthening health systems in developing countries, she said, adding that China had already donated $20 million to the WHO on March 11.
No more Covid patients in Wuhan hospitals
Wuhan, the city at the center of China’s coronavirus outbreak, has no more hospitalized patients after the last 12 were discharged on Sunday, the Hubei province health commission said. Hubei’s remaining patients were all in Wuhan, the provincial capital where the outbreak took the heaviest toll in China. The 3,869 people who died in the city account for more than 80% of the country’s reported deaths. “It is a historic day,” said a report in a newspaper. Hubei has no more suspected cases in its hospitals, though 1,728 people who had close contact with an infected person remain under medical observation, the province's health commission said. Patients remain hospitalized elsewhere in China, including 67 in Shanghai and three in Beijing. Many cities have seen an influx of cases from overseas, prompting the government to curtail international flights and entry sharply.
Beijing bans ‘uncivilised’ behaviour
Beijing has banned “uncivilised” behaviour such as not covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, the city government said. The laws relate to combating the pandemic. Rule-breakers will be slapped with fines for offences, including not wearing a mask in public when ill, the municipal government said on its website. The laws also require public places to set up one metre distance markers and to provide communal chopsticks and serving spoons for shared meals. Citizens must also “dress neatly” in public and not go shirtless.
Saudi Arabia ends flogging
Saudi Arabia has ended flogging as a form of punishment, according to a document from the kingdom's top court. The decision by the General Commission for the Supreme Court, taken sometime this month, will see the punishment replaced by prison sentences or fines, or a mixture of both. "The decision is an extension of the human rights reforms introduced under the direction of King Salman and the direct supervision of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman," the document said. Flogging has been applied to punish a variety of crimes in Saudi Arabia. Without a codified system of law to go with the texts making up sharia, or Islamic law, individual judges have the latitude to interpret religious texts and come up with their own sentences. Rights groups have documented past cases in which Saudi judges have sentenced criminals to flogging for a range of offences, including public intoxication and harassment. In another decision, King Salman also ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors. The latest royal decree will spare the death penalty for at least six men from the country’s minority Shia community.
Harvard defies Trump, says it will keep $8.6m stimulus grant
Harvard University said it plans to keep an $8.6 million grant it received as part of a stimulus package to blunt the economic impact of the Covid-19 lockdown, contradicting US President Trump who pledged the university would return it. Speaking at a briefing, Trump pointed to the institution’s ample endowment - worth nearly $41billion - as the reason why it should hand over the money. “Harvard is going to pay back the money and they shouldn’t be taking it,” Trump said. In a statement issued after the briefing, Harvard said it planned “to direct 100% of the funds to financial assistance to students, and will not be using any of the funds to cover institutional costs.”
