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Spain, one of the countries worst hit by the coronavirus, is beginning to ease strict lockdown measures that have brought its economy to a standstill. People in manufacturing, construction and some services are being allowed to return to work, but must stick to strict safety guidelines. The rest of the po[CENSORED]tion must still remain at home. Almost 17,500 people with Covid-19 have died in Spain, but the rate of new infections has been falling. Italy - the hardest hit country in Europe, with almost 19,900 deaths - will allow a narrow range of firms to resume operations on Tuesday. Spain's health ministry said on Monday that the daily number of deaths had dipped slightly, with 517 reported in the previous 24 hours, compared with 619 announced on Sunday. The official total death toll is now 17,489. The number of new infections continues to drop, with 3,477 confirmed cases bringing the total to 169,496. "We are still far from victory, from the moment when we will recover normality in our lives," Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned over the weekend. "We are all keen to go back out on the streets... but our desire is even greater to win the war and prevent a relapse," he added. On Monday, the government lifted some of the restrictions put in place on 27 March and allowed businesses whose employees cannot work remotely to reopen. Officials intend to distribute 10 million face masks on public transport. The head of the regional administration in Catalonia, Quim Torra, said he would not comply with any easing of the lockdown for non-essential workers, warning that "the risk of a new outbreak and a second lockdown is enormous". Mr Sánchez said the decision was taken after consulting a committee of experts. He also noted that Spain had not entered the "second phase" of the fight against the coronavirus, when there would be any further loosening of the lockdown. That was at least two weeks away and would "be very gradual", he added. Builders can only work in areas away from local residents, so they cannot yet go back to doing home improvements. Spaniards go back to work By Guy Hedgecoe in Madrid The lifting of some lockdown restrictions in Spain today has meant a return to normality of sorts for many non-essential workers. Two weeks ago they were told to stay at home as the national lockdown was tightened. On the Madrid metro and at bus and railway stations, police handed out face masks to commuters as part of a national strategy, However, even at rush hour, use of Madrid's transport system was much lower than normal. Antonio Álvarez, a self-employed manual worker, described it as a relief to be able to resume work on the digging of a swimming pool on a private property near the capital. "I think the restrictions so far have worked. If they hadn't implemented them it would have been disastrous," he said. Easter is a major holiday in the Spanish calendar, usually packed with religious events and marking the beginning of a busy tourist season. But this year, for the first time since the 1930s, there were no Easter processions and bars, restaurants, beaches and squares across the country were empty. As an alternative, some churches streamed Catholic Mass into the homes of worshippers, while websites replayed footage of religious processions from previous years. Italy reported 431 new deaths on Sunday - the lowest for more than three weeks. However, the country is almost certain to join the United States on Monday with a death toll of more than 20,000. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said last week that the lockdown would continue until 3 May, but that a few types of shops and businesses would be allowed to reopen on Tuesday. They would include bookshops, stationers and shops selling children's clothes, he said. Factories will not reopen, although Mr Conte said he would continue to assess the trend of new infections and "act accordingly" if conditions allowed it. In Germany, where 3,022 people with Covid-19 have died, pressure is also growing from businesses for a plan on how to exit the country's lockdown. On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel will discuss a strategy with regional leaders. Elsewhere in Europe, the number of people who have died with the virus in the Netherlands rose by 86 to 2,823 on Monday. The total number of cases increased by almost 1,000 to 26,551. And in France, which is expected to extend its lockdown until 10 May, police said dozens of worshippers defied the measures to attend a secret Easter Mass on Saturday. A priest was fined while other churchgoers were given a warning, the AFP news agency reports.

Game Informations Developers : Cornfox & Bros.. Released : November 14, 2013. Genre : Action-adventure. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - macOS - Playstation 4 - PlayStation Vita - Xbox One - Nintendo Switch -iOS - Android. Wind Waker Light It isn't often here at Destructoid that we don't review a game that has been released for almost four years across seven platforms, but Oceanhorn is one of those cases. This Zelda-like started out as an iOS game way back in the age of Obama in the year 2013, before the dark times we currently live in. The developers at Cornfox & Bros. have managed to combine the setting of The Wind Waker with the multi-layered gameplay found in A Link to the Past in a serviceable game that isn't quite on par with an actual Zelda title. So, basically about what you'd expect from an indie attempting to clone one of Nintendo's biggest franchises. The story of Oceanhorn isn't all that interesting or important. You play as a boy who wakes to find out that his dad has set out to kill Oceanhorn, a mechanical monster that has terrorized the world they live in. You set sail (literally) to find and help him. Thankfully the sailing here is mostly automatic aside from aiming a gun (which you can only use on the boat for some reason) at some enemies, and obstacles; a process that is over in no time but quickly grows tiresome thanks to how often the game forces you to do it. There's a decent amount of islands to discover, all of which can be explored to their fullest in around 12 hours. The islands can consist of repetitive beachy overworlds, caves, dungeons, and, of course, a graveyard. Variety is not Oceanhorn's strong suit as nearly every island consists of the same handful of enemies and textures. Combat is very simple, consisting of swinging your sword, throwing bombs, shooting arrows, and blocking. Thanks to some basic AI most enemies can be taken down quickly just by running up to them and mashing the attack button, which I guess is understandable considering the original version of the game was made for touchscreen devices; that doesn't mean it is all that fun. A few other minor annoyances include having to use a menu to switch items when doing so on the fly could have been easily assigned to the shoulder buttons, and checkpoints right before one of the few bosses that force you to watch their introductions each time you die by their hand. Amateur mistakes, if I do say so myself. Worse is that there is a stamina meter for running, swimming, and eventually jumping and rolling. This meter takes far too long to refill and runs out quickly, and the same can be said for the mana meter which requires you smash pots or kill enemies to refill. Pots respawn whenever you enter and exit an area, allowing you to easily refill your mana, so having the meter at all is pointless and stamina only serves to slow down the player's progress. Two outdated and not at all fun gameplay elements I hope developers stop using, immediately. I don't mind how simple most things in Oceanhorn are except for the puzzles, if you can call them that. Most dungeons will have blocks that need to be pushed to specific spots clearly marked on the ground, or levers to be found and swiped to open gates or reveal chests. Rarely did I ever feel like I needed to think about what I was doing, which is alright if you're looking for a more casual escape from all the hardcore survival and multiplayer-only titles flooding the market these days. Performance-wise, the Nintendo Switch version of Oceanhorn looks a bit dated, but that makes sense considering this is based on the PC version of the game from two years ago. Plus, the Switch isn't exactly known for being a graphical powerhouse. That said, Oceanhorn manages to run at a pretty solid 1080 60fps docked, and 720p 60fps while handheld. Meanwhile, the wonderful soundtrack was composed by Kalle Ylitalo and has a few tracks by Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito who are known for their work on the scores of Final Fantasy and the Mana series, respectively. If you've got a hankering for a game with a stamina meter, sword swinging, and pot smashing, there is at least one other better title on the Nintendo Switch that I can think of, but Oceanhorn is an alright little throwback to retro Zelda titles that could help you bide your time between Nintendo's slow trickle of AAA games.

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The company says that the update should improve endurance and performance repeatability as well as quicken launch-control starts. Tesla says its latest over-the-air update increases the power of its Model S and Model X Performance variants. The update also bumps up the vehicles' thermal performance and endurance, Tesla claims. During a launch-control start, the Teslas go into a "cheetah stance," lowering their front suspension and adjusting the damping for better traction. When we recently pitted the Tesla Model S Performance against the Porsche Taycan Turbo S, one of the slights against the Tesla was the performance degradation after using its launch-control mode more than once. Tesla seems to have been paying attention and has now rolled out an update to the Model S and Model X Performance editions that includes higher thermal performance and includes a front-suspension-lowering "cheetah" launch mode. When Ludicrious+ mode is enabled, the front suspension lowers and the damping is adjusted to increase takeoff traction. According to Tesla, the update includes a peak power increase, more high-speed power at speeds over 80 mph, and higher thermal performance with better endurance so there is less degradation of power after repeated use. In other words, you can use Ludicrous mode repeatedly with less power loss than before. How can thermal performance be improved with software, you ask? Does this mean Tesla has just decided to let the battery pack and electric motors get hotter before pulling power? Yes, that's exactly what happened, Tesla telling us that it has increased the cells' maximum temperature and introduced new thermal models for the battery pack, powertrain hardware, and cells that control the limits of the powertrain. Of course, the biggest trick is making these changes while still being confident in the longevity of the battery pack and powertrain. There's nothing in the release notes about power gained, but back in October, CEO Elon Musk tweeted about this update, saying that it should add an additional 50 horsepower to the vehicles. The company also says that the user interface to enable launch mode has been simplified and that the process the driver has to complete to actually take off is more straightforward. Once the brake and accelerator are depressed, you now have 15 seconds to launch instead of the four seconds described on page 75 of the Owner's Manual from before the update.

As per the findings of a study, overweight and obese kids had a higher percentage of lower and upper limb fracture, as compared to ones with normal weight. Researchers say that pre-school children who are overweight or obese have a higher risk of bone fractures during childhood than normal-weight pre-schoolers. The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, aimed to determine if having an overweight or obese range body mass index (BMI) at time of beginning school is associated with increased fracture incidence in childhood. "In a cohort of almost half a million children from Catalonia, Spain, we have found a strong association between pre-school overweight/obesity and the risk of fracture during childhood," said study senior author Daniel Prieto-Alhambra from the University of Oxford in the UK. According to the researchers, a dynamic cohort was created from children presenting for routine preschool primary care screening, collected in the Information System for Research in Primary Care (SIDIAP) platform in Catalonia, Spain. Data were collected from 296 primary care centres representing 74 per cent of the regional paediatric po[CENSORED]tion. The study included 466,997 children with weight and height measurements at age four years who were followed for a median of 4.9 years. The findings showed that fractures occurred in 9.20 per cent of underweight, 10.06 per cent of normal weight, 11.28 per cent of overweight, and 13.05 per cent of obese children. Compared with normal weight, overweight and obesity were linked with 42 per cent and 74 per cent higher risks of lower limb fractures, respectively, and a 10 per cent and 19 per cent higher risk of upper limb fractures, respectively. Overall, preschool children with an overweight or obese range BMI had increased incidence of upper and lower limb fractures in childhood compared with normal-weight kids. "More research is needed to further understand the mechanisms underlying this correlation," Prieto-Alhambra said.

The home secretary has said she is sorry if NHS staff feel there has been a failure to provide protective kit for those treating coronavirus patients. But Priti Patel said there were going to be problems during what she called an "unprecedented global pandemic". The British Medical Association earlier said that NHS staff were putting their lives at risk when treating patients. The health secretary said earlier that 19 NHS workers had died with coronavirus since the outbreak began. Speaking at Saturday's coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, the home secretary said: "I'm sorry if people feel that there have been failings. I will be very, very clear about that. "But at the same time, we are in an unprecedented global health pandemic right now. It is inevitable that the demand and the pressures on PPE and demand for PPE are going to be exponential." On Friday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there was enough kit for everyone and unveiled a plan to address shortages. He said the government was looking into how NHS staff who had died with the virus had been infected - adding that some may have caught it outside of work. "But that doesn't take away from the bravery of every single NHS worker," he said, adding that his "heart goes out" to those who have died and their families. Mr Hancock said he was "particularly struck at the high proportion of people from minority ethnic backgrounds and people who have come to this country to work in the NHS who have died of coranavirus". "We should recognise their enormous contribution," he added. Supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) in London and Yorkshire are at "dangerously low levels", according to the BMA. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said doctors were being forced into a corner and faced "heart-breaking decisions" over whether to carry on without proper protection. He said: "This is an immensely difficult position to be in, but is ultimately down to the government's chronic failure to supply us with the proper equipment." A nurse at Watford General Hospital in Hertfordshire, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the BBC he felt unsafe with the level of PPE he had been given. He said shortages meant those working on wards with coronavirus patients were only being given a surgical mask and plastic apron, rather than a gown covering the whole body. Last week a nursing assistant who had been looking after coronavirus patients at the hospital died. "We are scared because we are spreading the virus," he said. "We don't deserve it and our patients even more." 'Precious resource' The health secretary said 742 million pieces of protective gear had been delivered so far, saying: "There's enough PPE to go around, but only if it's used in line with our guidance. We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource that it is." Mr Hancock said he was not "impugning anyone who works for the NHS" and "they do an amazing job". "But what I am reiterating, stressing, is the importance to use the right amount of PPE," he added. However, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was "insulting to imply frontline staff are wasting PPE" and the government "must act" to ensure sufficient supplies are delivered. stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) and that the problem lay in the distribution from warehouses to the front line. Some hospitals have reported receiving higher consignments of gloves, masks, gowns and aprons. But doctors and nurses have continued to report shortages. Care homes, pharmacies, GP practices and community health teams feel they are at the back of the queue for equipment to protect staff who may come into contact with patients who have Covid-19. There has also been confusion over how safety guidelines should apply. Now Matt Hancock has admitted there are global supply problems and says it is a "herculean effort" to get deliveries to health workers and a "huge task" to keep it going. He set out a series of measures to step up provision of equipment. He may be given credit for acknowledging the scale of the problem. But NHS and care staff won't take much notice of plans until they are reflected in reality on the ground. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has dismissed any suggestion that healthcare staff have been overusing PPE. RCN chief executive Dame Donna Kinnair told the BBC no PPE was "more precious a resource than a healthcare worker's life, a nurse's life, a doctor's life". "I take offence, actually, that we are saying that healthcare workers are abusing or overusing PPE," she told BBC Breakfast, adding that nurses were still telling her they did not have adequate supply of protective equipment. Meanwhile, the business organisation Make It British said the government had not yet taken up offers from some firms to help manufacture PPE. The group said at least 100 companies had responded to an appeal for help four weeks ago but had heard nothing since.

Game Informations Developers : Capybara Games. Released : December 14, 2018. Genre : Action-adventure. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - Playstation 4 - Xbox One. Capybara's new dungeon-delving adventure, Below, places a lot of confidence in its players. Aside from a few basic control prompts up front, the beloved indie studio offers almost zero explicit instructions. There's a fundamental faith that players will be inquisitive enough to glean all the details they need from visual cues woven into lavish world design and a super clean, super minimalist user interface. Early on, I found this approach totally engrossing. I love it when a game trusts me to figure things out on my own and, crucially, provides me with reasonable clues to help make those connections possible. Below is brimming with a-ha moments as you teach yourself how not to starve, how dungeon floors can (and can't) change from one permadeath run to the next, and what to do when everything goes to hell and you need to extract your gear from an inhospitable area that won't ever seem to end. In retrospect, it's a fairly simple game -- you only need to keep descending, one floor at a time, until you reach the mysterious bottom -- but the real trick is endurance. Below doesn't demand fast reflexes or a particularly quick wit, but it does require grit. One small slip-up can have devastating repercussions. It pains me to put it so bluntly. As I covered in my review in progress, the first several hours of Below will be audio-visual bliss for anyone who cherishes a sense of genuine discovery. In a year with some truly beautiful games, Capybara's tilt-shift art direction stands out, and composer Jim Guthrie is as on-point with palpably atmospheric tracks as I'd expect after his work on Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. It's not just the killer aesthetic that sets a promising tone. Below's light action-adventuring is much more enjoyable in the opening hours when its survival and roguelike elements don't feel so prickly. Say, for example, you run low on food. You might feel pressure to move a bit less methodically than you otherwise would in hopes of finding stray mice or plants you can chop up and nibble on. The shadowy monsters who roam Below's early levels only take a swipe or two at most. They aren't much of a threat, even in large groups. You're far more likely to walk into a stray spike trap or make some other critical error in the stifling darkness. If and when that happens, a new adventurer with none of your gear will appear on the island's surface for another attempt. You'll need to navigate back to your former body to find and reclaim the all-important lantern, an item that's mandatory for progression. The underground rooms will seem familiar but slightly fresh due to procedural generation, so there's added guesswork, and you won't have health or food reserves on-hand unless you make it a point to stock up. During the first half of the game, this is a setback, to be sure, but you can recover without taking a huge blow to your motivation to continue. You'll likely have a few shortcuts opened up by then and a basic grasp on the different layouts each specific floor and biome can take. It's tricky to see without the lantern's guiding light, but it's doable as long as you prepare appropriately and play cautiously. Later on, once you reach a brutal set of one-way floors with a looming presence following your every step, death can be utterly disastrous. Below morphs from repetitive to outright punitive. With a well-stocked hero, the situation is tense. With a new recruit who has to survive long enough to nab his predecessor's lantern and then keep going until he finds an escape route, it's hellish. I left off my review in progress venting these frustrations and wondering if the struggle could possibly be worth it. Nine more hours later, I've not only made it through the gauntlet, but I've since run back through the entire span of the game multiple times to locate the last few collectibles I had missed. Below's ending was about what I expected: gorgeous to look at and packed with more questions than answers. Some players will relish the challenge, but I just couldn't. Not in this game. Below puts its best foot forward in its early hours and then never stops losing steam. If the experience were somehow compressed into a tighter six- to eight-hour adventure, I'd confidently recommend it to a wide audience. As it stands, the game has a masterful command of ambiance, but it comes with too many caveats.

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Lifting coronavirus lockdown measures too early could spark a "deadly resurgence" in infections, the World Health Organization chief has warned. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries should be cautious about easing restrictions, even as some struggle with the economic impact. Europe's worst hit countries, Spain and Italy, are both relaxing some measures, while their lockdowns continue. Globally there are 1.6 million cases of coronavirus and 101,000 deaths. Speaking at a virtual news conference in Geneva, Dr Tedros said there had been a "welcome slowing" of the epidemics in some European countries. He said the WHO was working with governments to form strategies for easing restrictions, but that this should not be done too soon. "Lifting restrictions too quickly could lead to a deadly resurgence," he said. "The way down can be as dangerous as the way up if not managed properly." How are Spain and Italy easing curbs? The government in Spain is preparing to allow some non-essential workers in sectors including construction and factory production to return to their jobs on Monday. Spain recorded its lowest daily death toll in 17 days on Friday, with 605 people dying. According to the latest figures, Spain has now registered 15,843 deaths related to the virus. However, the government has urged people to continue to uphold social distancing rules over the Easter long weekend In Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extended the national lockdown until 3 May, warning that the gains made so far should not be lost. However, a small proportion of businesses that have been shut since 12 March will be permitted to reopen on Tuesday. Mr Conte specifically mentioned bookshops and children's clothing shops, but media reports suggest laundrettes and other services may also be included. Only grocery stores and pharmacies have been allowed to operate since the lockdown started. The number of deaths in Italy rose by 570 on Friday, down from a daily figure of 610 the day before, and the number of new cases also slowed slightly to 3,951 from 4,204. The number of people who have died with Covid-19 in France went up by nearly 1,000 to 13,197 on Friday. However, the number of people in intensive care units fell slightly for the second day in a row. "We seem to be reaching a plateau, albeit a high level," Director of Health Jérôme Salomon said. Is the spread of the virus slowing? WHO head Dr Tedros welcomed the apparent slowdown in infections in some European countries on Friday. US officials also say the coronavirus outbreak may be starting to level off there. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Friday that while there were encouraging signs, the epidemic had not yet reached its peak. Meanwhile, Dr Tedros has warned that the virus is now spreading rapidly in other countries. He highlighted Africa, where he said the virus had reached rural areas. "We are now seeing clusters of cases and community spread in more than 16 countries" on the continent, he said. "We anticipate severe hardship for already overstretched health systems, particularly in rural areas, which normally lack the resources of those in cities."

Porsche announced that the last previous-generation 911 would head to the auction block later this month to help raise money for the United Way Worldwide’s COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund. The final 991-series 911, a Speedster, comes with more than just the car, though. The automaker is offering up a compelling, once-in-a-lifetime package that should be enticing for any Porsche enthusiasts while helping to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. The winning bidder will get more than just the car as Porsche is pairing the 911 Speedster with a bespoke package filled with goodies. That includes a 911 Speedster Heritage Design Chronograph, though that’s not all. The winning bidder, along with one lucky guest, will also get an opportunity to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the Porsche AG Weissach development headquarters. That personal tour includes “experiencing the test track” with Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser and Andreas Preuninger, heads of the 911 and GT model lines, respectively. Delivery will take place at a dedicated event in the U.S. with Porsche Cars North America President and CEO Klaus Zellmer hosting the handoff of the car. The winner will also get a book that highlights the completion of the last 991. The book will include photographs along with an original sketch by the Speedster design team. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to support the United Way Worldwide’s COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund. RM Sotheby’s is hosting the auction through its Online Only platform, and bidding will be open for one week. There’s no reserve. Bidding opens 11 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, April 15, and closes Wednesday, April 22, at 1 p.m.

A therapy dog is a dog that is trained to provide affection, comfort and support to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, libraries or disaster areas. nteracting with a therapy dog for couple of minutes may help lower stress in physicians and nurses working in emergency departments, say researchers. A therapy dog is a dog that is trained to provide affection, comfort and support to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, libraries or disaster areas. "Many healthcare workers and laypersons believe that dog-assisted support can improve emotional well-being in the healthcare setting, but little hard data exist to scientifically evaluate this belief, especially in emergency care," said lead author Jeffrey A Kline from the Indiana University in the US. In the 122-participant study, published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine, emergency providers randomised to a five-minute interaction with a therapy dog and handler. The research found that emergency providers had a significant reduction in self-reported anxiety using a visual analogue scale compared with patients randomised to colouring mandalas for five minutes with coloured pencils. Also, at the end of the shift, emergency providers had lower salivary cortisol (a stress hormone) with either colouring or therapy dog interactions compared with controls. "We provide novel data to suggest that emergency care providers enjoyed seeing a dog on shift, and received a small benefit in stress reduction after the interaction. We still do not know the extent to which the benefit was from the dog, the handler, or the combination of the two," Kline added.

Game Informations Developers : Semisoft. Released : June 24, 2018 (Windows) / October 3, 2019 (PS4-Xbox One). Genre : Role-Playing. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - Playstation 4 - Xbox One - Nintendo Switch. Nostalgia is ridiculously powerful. Particularly in video games, we tend to get swept up in the nostalgia of our youth with experiences that shaped our taste in a genre or our interest in the medium altogether. Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds aims to tug on our nostalgia-filled heartstrings as a role-playing game from a bygone era. Developer Semisoft promised a PlayStation 2-style JRPG and, for better or for worse, it sure does feel like one. Legrand, much like the classic JRPGs of the PS1 and PS2 generations, uses turn-based combat. Anyone who's played a classic Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest title will feel at home. Before each round begins, you'll lock in an action for each of your characters and watch them play out. Legrand, however, asks you to remain a little more active while the action unfolds. You'll be given a spinning dial with a quick button prompt when each character goes to attack. Get the timing right, and you'll perform a successful action. Mess it up, and fail. It's really nothing new to the genre as games like Paper Mario have done this sort of thing before, but it does keep you a bit more engaged. And while it isn't particularly challenging to pull off, getting an experience bonus from having perfect timing is a worthy reward. Your active party can hold up to three characters, but you can swap members in and out as a bonus action on your turn, making it easy to change formation and exploit enemy weaknesses. Character placement also plays a role in strategy since you can place characters in the front or back row. Standing in the back will protect you from incoming melee attacks, but you'll only have access to ranged moves, making it the perfect posting for archers or casters. Combat is never all that challenging as you can examine weaknesses at any point in the conflict and adjust to exploit enemies accordingly. If any monster feels particularly powerful, it's best to just have the party guard until they've charged up their Arcana actions, special ultimate moves similar to Final Fantasy VII's Limit Break. The way item use in combat is handled feels notably dated and frustrating. Items need to be assigned from the bag to four item slots on a per-character basis. Even most original PlayStation RPGs knew that a catch-all item bag was the way to go. Having to make sure each of my six characters was outfitted with a variety of buff and healing items was an annoying chore. As a result, I stopped relying heavily on items a few hours in. Beyond the basic turn-based combat, Legrand introduces larger-scale army battles after a few hours. It functions as a simple, self-contained strategy game. You move your units like chess pieces along a grid and attempt to either target specific units, clear the board entirely, or gain control of territory depending on the victory conditions. It isn't a deep system, but it does keep things fresh between the normal combat encounters. Legrand's art combines hand-painted backgrounds with 3D character models. The result is some pretty stunning cityscapes, forests, and deserts that feel at odds with the unremarkable character models. I encountered more than a few irritating technical issues in my first few hours with the Switch version. Particularly on long play sessions, I had battles freeze up or even randomly crash the game. The autosave system made sure I never lost an insane amount of progress, but I was annoyed all the same. Our story is your standard fantasy fare. The protagonist, Finn, is a swordsman with amnesia who discovers with the help of a noble girl named Aria that he is one of the Fatebound, a group of legendary heroes destined to save the world from an ancient threat. Along the way, you'll get pulled into more significant political turmoil and interpersonal drama, but none of the characters are written strongly enough to really get you invested in all this world-building. Hell, Finn even manages to get himself embroiled in a love triangle despite being about as charming as a piece of driftwood. Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds is what it claims to be: a role-playing game that feels old, for better or for worse. It won't wow you with storytelling or world-building, but the combat is serviceable, if not remarkably challenging. If you're a fan of old-school Japanese role-playing games, you'll find something to enjoy here. Just know that you're in for a game that, much like it claims to, feels dated.

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The coronavirus pandemic will turn global economic growth "sharply negative" this year, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned. Kristalina Georgieva said the world faced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. She forecast that 2021 would only see a partial recovery. Lockdowns imposed by governments have forced many companies to close and lay off staff. Earlier this week, a UN study said 81% of the world's workforce of 3.3 billion people had had their place of work fully or partly closed because of the outbreak. Ms Georgieva, the IMF's managing director, made her bleak assessment in remarks ahead of next week's IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings. Emerging markets and developing countries would be the hardest hit, she said, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid. "Just three months ago, we expected positive per capita income growth in over 160 of our member countries in 2020," she said. "Today, that number has been turned on its head: we now project that over 170 countries will experience negative per capita income growth this year." She added: "In fact, we anticipate the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression." Ms Georgieva said that if the pandemic eased in the second half of 2020, the IMF expected to see a partial recovery next year. But she cautioned that the situation could also worsen. "I stress there is tremendous uncertainty about the outlook. It could get worse depending on many variable factors, including the duration of the pandemic," she said. Her comments came as the US reported that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits had surged for the third week by 6.6 million, bringing the total over that period to more than 16 million Americans. The US Federal Reserve said it would unleash an additional $2.3tn in lending as restrictions on activity to help contain the coronavirus had forced many businesses to close and put about 95% of Americans on some form of lockdown. Separately, UK-based charity organisation Oxfam warned that the economic fallout from the spread of Covid-19 could force more than half a billion more people into poverty. By the time the pandemic is over, the charity said, half of the world's po[CENSORED]tion of 7.8 billion people could be living in poverty. On Thursday, following marathon talks, EU leaders agreed a €500bn (£440bn; $546bn) economic support package for members of the bloc hit hardest by the lockdown measures. The European Commission earlier said it aimed to co-ordinate a possible "roadmap" to move away from the restrictive measures. Earlier this week, the International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency, warned that the pandemic posed "the most severe crisis" since World War Two. It said the outbreak was expected to wipe out 6.7% of working hours across the world during the second quarter of 2020 - the equivalent of 195 million full-time workers losing their jobs. Last month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that the global economy would take years to recover. Secretary general Angel Gurría said that economies were suffering a bigger shock than after the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001 or the 2008 financial crisis.

The study analysis found that adolescents who smoked the most and children who started smoking at younger ages were more likely to be daily smokers in their 20s and were less likely to quit smoking by their 40s. The younger you start smoking, the more likely you are to smoke daily as an adult, even into your 40s, and the harder it will be to quit, warn researchers. The study, published in the journal American Heart Association, focused on smoking at an early age, using information obtained directly from children and adolescents in the 1970s to 1980s and re-contacting many of them as recently as 2018. Based on our data coupled with a variety of other evidence, we found childhood smoking leads to adult smoking," said study lead author David Jacobs from the University of Minnesota in the US. For the findings, the research team analysed smoking information on more than 6,600 people (57 per cent female) between the ages of 6-19 and during their 20s and 40s, from Finland, Australia and the US. Participants were followed from childhood into middle age as part of the International Childhood Cardiovascular Cohort Consortium. The study analysis found that adolescents who smoked the most and children who started smoking at younger ages were more likely to be daily smokers in their 20s and were less likely to quit smoking by their 40s. Even children who only tried smoking at a very minimal level - a few cigarettes - were more likely to end up as a daily adult smoker. The percentage of participants who smoked daily during their 20s was eight per cent for those who first tried smoking at age 18-19; 33 per cent for those who first tried smoking at age 15-17; 48 per cent for those who first tried smoking at age 13-14; and 50 per cent for those who first tried smoking during ages 6-12. Only 2.6 per cent of participants who took up smoking for the first time after their 20s smoked in their 40s, the study said. Although the current study was conducted in three developed nations, the researchers believe that the results likely apply more broadly. "Even in low income and developing countries, the societal reinforcement of smoking, the basic addictive qualities of nicotine, and the maturation of children and children's judgment through adolescence are universal," said Jacobs. "Cigarette smoking is an avoidable health risk, and its seeds are in childhood. Cigarette smoking, even experimentally, among children of any age should be strongly discouraged," Jacobs concluded.

Game Informations Developers : ArtPlay, DICO, WayForward Technologies. Released : June 18, 2019 / June 25, 2019 (Switch). Genre : Action, Platformer, 2D, Role-Playing, Action RPG. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - Playstation 4 - Xbox One - Nintendo Switch. Bloodstained will probably live forever in the memory of those who backed it on Kickstarter. It was part of the "actually creators can rebuke publishers and do their own thing" era of the crowdfunding platform, alongside of projects like Mighty No. 9 and Shenmue III. That was back in 2015, and the project has made many twists and turns to get to the point where it is today, no matter how many platforms it left dead, dying, and bloodied along the way (RIP Vita and Wii U). Multiple developers have been involved in its creation at this point, and a new art style was unveiled : which likely had a lot to do with the myriad delays the project has dealt with since its announcement. Now, it's finally here. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night really reminds me of Yooka-Laylee to a degree. If you enjoyed Symphony of the Night and DS-era Castlevania games (similar to how Yooka was built on the back of Banjo Kazooie, jank and all), you will probably dig it. If you don't, the improvements are mostly marginal and probably won't sway you to the occult side. The good news is that there are myriad ways at this point to test whether or not you'll like Bloodstained before you plunk $40 down on it. Again, to be clear, all of the Metroidvania Castlevania staples are present. There's teleport and save rooms, subweapons, a map that has nearly the same exact color scheme as Castlevania producer IGA's work on the series, item shops, similar locomotion to how Alucard operated in Symphony, and a soundtrack that sounds like an homage to the series. Man does that map system still work too, as it teases out exploration in this fairly sprawling overworld. After searching for over an hour with no avail, it's always heartening to see that little tiny connected map piece and seek it out (only to find that it's a dead end and you actually need to spend another hour wandering around). I think I actually appreciate combat the most though. What I appreciate about Bloodstained is that there's a formidable foe nearly every few minutes that grants worthwhile gear and upgrades. Minibosses are a frequent occurrence when running around randomly, and bosses come at a decent cadence. Although screens aren't filled with as many normal enemies as I'd like until near the end, there's rarely a dull moment as you're constantly gaining new abilities, Blue Mage style, for kills (so you're saying it's "skills for kills?"). Allowing more versatile build options is one arena where Bloodstained might surpass its predecessors. With shortcuts you can swap to entirely different loadouts, like a super quick "enhanced movement speed power boots" build that allows you to zip around lightning fast and hop on enemy heads like Mario. Or if you're feeling bulky, a min-maxed high strength glass cannon build with a greatsword that can slice regular enemies in half in one hit that's also resistant to fire. I usually find myself comfortably sticking to what I know, but unlocking a new ability every 15-20 minutes or so screams "experimentation." Crafting scratches that same itch. Sequence breaking is still present, as are esoteric puzzle and progression solutions. Although most of them are intuitive, one in particular is pretty nasty and will stump a lot of people. Really, you're still going to be spending a lot of time just goofing around having no clear idea of where to go. My first run (with the bad ending) took me around 10 hours or so, at which point I was allowed to immediately continue right before I triggered it. The subsequent run (good ending) took another five hours to hit, and I estimate that a 100% clear will take around 20 hours total on the first try. I'm surprised at how well the new visual style works in-game and how far the aesthetics have come from the early Kickstarter development days. While some of the character models (mostly NPCs) are a bit raw and lack character; Miriam, the majority of the boss fights, and nearly all of the locales are stunning. The stained glass motif serves Bloodstained very well, and I'm happy IGA and his team found a way to bake it into the entire narrative of the game. Rarely do Gothic themes come together like this. It's not all dour and dark though, as Bloodstained is also pretty out-there. There's a demon barber named Todd (that does not reside on Fleet Street) who helps you customize your hairstyle and cosmetic look. There's a bunch of weird NPCs scattered across the map and a handful of optional endgame boss fights to find (including a retro-tinted one). If you sit at a piano long enough, Miriam will play a little ditty on it. There's a lot of character that you need to see in-game to believe. Amid all of the delays, Bloodstained actually shipped with a decent amount of content and there's more on the way. When it just comes to the campaign, it's roughly comparable to an IGAvania, if not bulkier, as I described just a moment ago. Coming with the launch is a speed run gametype, cheats, new game plus, an additional difficulty, and a boss rush mode. On the way: two more characters, local/online play (for co-op and versus in "certain modes"), chaos mode, "boss revenge," a roguelike toggle, a classic (old school style Castlevania controls) mode, and more. Not bad! After all this time though it is a little rough around the edges, and some of that roughness directly impacted gameplay. Although I haven't encountered a gamebreaking bug so far per se on PS4, I have witnessed several areas where the game slows down quite a bit, and have seen countless visual flair-ups (mostly pop-in) and a few instances where the AI is acting suspiciously sluggish. There was also a major bug I encountered against a boss with a countdown timer (being vague to avoid spoilers) where I whittled it down until it froze and I couldn't actually finish the fight. Come to find out I had a summon (a familiar) equipped that was damaging it after it was already dead, preventing it from entering a transitional cutscene-like state for the killing blow (after realizing this following three attempts, I turned the familiar off and it allowed me to progress). This is on top of one case where I glitched through the ceiling and entered an area I shouldn't have (a quick wayward stone took me back to base unharmed). Bloodstained is occasionally frustrating, refreshingly open, and as promised, wholly Castlevania. Hopefully some polish is on the way for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night as to not alienate folks who are new to the genre, but as any Castlevania fan knows, partial jank comes with the territory.

Billie Eilish says she is an "introverted loner", and is happily spending a lot of time alone during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Grammy award-winning singer Billie Eilish says she is an "introverted loner", and is happily spending a lot of time alone during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The pop star said that she is being "introverted and lonerish" in self-isolation, reports mirror.co.uk. "I've been really enjoying being alone. I feel like everybody on the internet has been on FaceTime all day long with their friends. I love my friends, I can't wait to see them, I do miss them a lot, but at the same time... I'm good. I'm good being alone... I like being alone," she added. Eilish thinks the gratitude at being set free after lockdown won't last long. "As soon as we can see people again and go out, we're going to be so happy and grateful. And in about three days, we're all going to take it for granted again.That's the way people work. It's the way humans are made," she said. "You miss something so bad once you don't have it... You never think about it when you have it," she added. The singer has fostered two pit bull puppies to accompany her during isolation. She told the Telekom Electronic Beats podcast that caring for Miss Mardy and Jim is a "full time job". "There's such a misconception about them. They're sweethearts, they cuddle," she said.

Game Informations Developers : Avalanche. Released : Dec 4, 2018. Genre : Action-adventure. Platforms : Microsoft Windows - Playstation 4 - Xbox One. The "big thing" in Just Cause 4 is weather mani[CENSORED]tion. The plot centers around it (and some actual plot which falls flat), new weapons utilize it, and it is ingrained into the map as well. It's a neat hook; the thought of owning the Lightning Gun is very provocative and actively makes me want to pursue unlocking it. And then I unlocked it and it was the most boring thing I could think of. It shoots a straight beam of energy and can also lob a "lightning grenade" which is really just a grenade. Neat. Just Cause 4 feels tedious almost immediately. Yes, it is still exciting to master the movement of the grappling hook, parachute, and wingsuit, but when story missions force Rico to drive someone two bazillion miles to a destination while fighting off the same three types of vehicles, an interesting question arises: does Avalanche Studios understand what makes these games so great? Let's break it down. What's your favorite thing about the Just Cause franchise? Chances are the first things to come to mind are the explosions, grappling hook, and Rico's suave accent. All these things are present in Just Cause 4, but it doesn't feel like they were the main focus in development. Let's start with explosions. There are plenty of explosions for sure. In fact, every time I boot up the game I can hear some random explosion happening in the distance, and I love that. In general, though, the source of these explosions is all very same-y. There are a ton of red explosion barrels of course, but the amount of red, destructible objects seems to have gone down. I can't count how many times I've seen the same giant antennae, the same giant propane tanks, and the same radar dish. They're everywhere. Progress comes by unlocking new areas of the map, which often require Rico to swoop in and complete some small-time mission to get rid of the baddies in the area. Completing the mission usually allows for the player to dispatch a "squad" of their own troops, a resource acquired by blowing shit up around the map, and claim the area. The mission design itself hasn't changed much, either. At first, objectives feel somewhat varied, but just a handful of hours in, things become predictable. Overall, it's a better system than the previous game, but the missions themselves become tedious quickly. Heading into a mission area always has me thinking "I wonder what terminals I'll need to push to complete this mission." While the lack of varied explosives allows the players to instantly recognize what they're looking for, it leads to a more formulaic approach to missions that feels antithesis to what the series aims to be about: explosive freedom. The grappling hook works the same as always, but with some tweaks in the form of an upgrade system and loadouts. As the story progresses, Rico unlocks new gadget to use in tandem with his grappling hook, like balloons, boosters, and C4. In a way, it's unfortunate that the C4 is removed from Rico's normal arsenal and attached to the grappling hook loadouts; it feels like a step backward. It's a system that gets more convoluted the deeper it goes, as dealing with multiple grappling hook loadouts that all do different things gets confusing. Again, it's something that feels like a hurdle towards the goal of freedom in chaos. And then there are the technical aspects. As you read, just remember that I played on PC (my specs are at the beginning of this review). Just Cause 4...does not look great. Sometimes, for a brief moment, it's breathtaking. As Rico soars through the skies over lush landscapes with cities in the background, it is a tremendous sight. The issue is that 99% of the time, that image is marred by a ton of pop-in. The game hovered around 45-60 frames per second with everything on High, and that became more stable as I played with the options. Even on High, though, the fidelity just feels lacking. I'm honestly not sure if this is a visual step up from the third game. The water looks awful and the hair on the characters is mind-bogglingly gross. The character models, in general, look poor and I'm not really sure why. I should also mention that while I have not experienced the game crashing, others have reported frequent crashes on PC. Even the controls on PC feel awkward, especially within the map user interface. I never thought I'd have a problem navigating menus on a PC in 2018, yet here I am, fumbling over buttons and constantly entering and exiting the menus on accident. Controlling a jet with the default controls feels like absolutely no one tried this control scheme out, using a can of alphabet soup to assign default keybinds. They can be changed, but what the hell, man? Just Cause 4 is not a better game than its predecessor. In many ways, it feels like the same game, just with a new continent to explore. For some, this may be all they ever wanted, but for the rest of us, it's just not enough. The formula starts to show itself early and can feel monotonous only a few hours in. There will always be joy in the mass destruction of the Just Cause 4 games, but the games seem to rely more and more on "making your own fun" instead of pushing the player into exciting and unique scenarios via the mission structure and overall game design.

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and payment app Square, has said he will donate $1bn (£810m) towards efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. According to Mr Dorsey, the donation represented approximately 28% of his wealth. He made the announcement on Twitter, writing that the "needs are increasingly urgent". Mr Dorsey did not lay out exactly where the funds would be sent to help in the battle against Covid-19. In the US there is a shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment, and business and individuals are also struggling economically. Mr Dorsey will use shares he owns in Square to fund the donations which will be distributed through the Start Small Foundation. The 43-year-old is the chief executive of both Twitter and Square. He said he was using shares of Square and not Twitter because he owned "a lot more" of them. The shares will be sold over time, which could impact on their value and the overall size of the donation. Once the Covid-19 pandemic has been "disarmed", the funds will go toward girls health and education and research into universal basic income. In a six-part Twitter thread, Mr Dorsey said he wanted to donate to causes where he could see an impact in his lifetime. The donations will be made through a limited liability company. It is a tool many wealth individuals use for donations, but is often criticized for a lack of transparency. Mr Dorsey sought to get ahead of this charge by posting a link to a google doc which will publicly track the funds donations. The Twitter boss is not the only tech billionaire to pledge part of their wealth towards coronavirus-related efforts. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has committed $30m, the bulk of which is focused on efforts to create a treatment. Amazon's Jeff Bezos has donated $100m to food banks in the US to help those struggling with hunger during this period. Apple's chief executive Tim Cook announced in March the company would donate medical supplies to Italy which has been hit hard by the virus.

John Taylor revealed that he was diagnosed with COVID-19 three weeks ago and he has been self-quarantining as per the medical protocol. Duran Duran bassist John Taylor has announced that he has tested positive for novel coronavirus and is on a road to recovery. In a Facebook post, the 59-year-old English musician revealed that he was diagnosed with COVID-19 three-weeks-ago and has been self-quarantining as per medical protocol. "Perhaps I am a particularly robust 59 year old -- I like to think I am -- or was blessed with getting only a mild case of COVID-19, but after a week or so of what I would describe as a 'Turbo-charged Flu', I came out of it feeling okay. Although I must admit I didn't mind the quarantine as it gave me the chance to really recover," wrote Taylor. "I am speaking out to answer to the enormous amount of fear being generated by the pandemic, some of it entirely justified, and my heart goes out to everyone who has had to deal with real loss and pain. But I want to let you know that it isn't always a killer, and we can and will beat this thing," he added. Musicians who also tested positive for COVID-19 and are recovering include Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan, Pink and Marianne Faithful. Many of the artistes including Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, country star Joe Diffie, jazz legends Alan Merrill , New Wave artist Cristina, jazz musicians Ellis Marsalis Jr and Wallace Roney have died of complications due to coronavirus.

More than 100 global organisations are calling for debt payments of developing countries to be dropped this year. These countries include the world's poorest economies which are struggling with the impacts of coronavirus. Major charities including Oxfam and ActionAid International are asking for the debt relief, which would free up more than $25bn (£20bn) this year. They have written to world leaders and major central banks calling for a range of debt relief measures. The call is being spearheaded by UK-based charity Jubilee Debt Campaign and comes a day before a meeting of the G20 group of the world's largest and fastest-growing economies. Developing countries are being hit by an unprecedented economic shock, and at the same time face an urgent health emergency," said Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign. "The suspension on debt payments called for by the IMF and World Bank saves money now, but kicks the can down the road and avoids actually dealing with the problem of spiralling debts." The campaigners want debt payments to be cancelled with immediate effect, including payments to private creditors. "This is the fastest way to keep money in countries to use in responding to Covid-19, and to ensure public money is not wasted bailing out the profits of rich private speculators," added Ms Clifton. Calculations from non-profit network Eurodad show that 69 of the world's poorest countries are due to pay $19.5bn to other governments and multilateral institutions, and $6bn to external private lenders this year. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made $50bn available in emergency financing while the World Bank has approved a $14bn response package to the most vulnerable economies. The IMF wants to target the money at countries with weak health systems to help them respond to the epidemic. Meanwhile, the World Bank's funding is aimed at both supporting the health and financial impact of the virus. These will include low-cost loans, grants and technical assistance. During the coronavirus pandemic, campaigners want debt relief to be applied for all countries in need, and most urgently for the poorest countries. Looking more long-term, they want a process to reduce debts to a sustainable level after the crisis. This involves asking the IMF to introduce clear guidelines on when a debt is unsustainable, and follow its policy only to lend to countries with unsustainable debts if there is a default or debt restructuring plan in place. In a blog on Monday, the IMF said the pandemic had pushed the world into a recession. "For 2020 it will be worse than the global financial crisis. The economic damage is mounting across all countries, tracking the sharp rise in new infections and containment measures put in place by governments".