Stable, sustainable recovery amid pandemic an important aim of Union Budget: FM

COLOMBO (News 1st); The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) states that 5 ships carrying fuel will arrive in the island within the upcoming week.Its Chairman, Sumith Wijesinghe stated that diesel, petrol and jet fuel will be brought to Sri Lanka by these ships.Accordingly, he assured that there are sufficient stocks of fuel in the country while adding that the CPC is ready to provide the necessary stocks of fuel to the Ceylon Electricity Board as well.However, Wijesinghe stated that the CEB must pay in rupees for the stocks of fuel.Meanwhile, the daily fuel demand has reported a rapid increase within the last few days.The Chairman of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation stated that the average daily fuel demand in the country is 6,000 metric tons, however, on Saturday (19) the demand recorded an increase of 9,000 metric tons.

One of Canada’s busiest commercial truck border crossings was closed again Saturday as anti-mandate protesters swarmed the route leading to the Pacific Highway crossing in Surrey. Kamil Karamali reports.

COLOMBO (News 1st): It is important to introduce ethics for social media usage, Shehan Semasinghe, the State Minister of Samurdhi, Household Economy, Micro Finance, Self Employment, and Business Development said. He pointed out that social media is being used to circulate misinformation.“Certain people have taken the lead in tarnishing Sri Lanka’s reputation with regard to Human Rights, every time the Geneva Human Rights Council session is there. This is because they cannot stand the revival of a collapsed economy,” State Minister Semasinghe emphasized.Thereby, he highlighted the need to introduce social media ethics, since the use of social media for personal gains may negatively impact the country on the diplomatic front.He shared these remarks at an event held in Anuradhapura.

Police officers appeared to be shifting strategy Saturday in Ottawa as they worked to clear the remaining protesters from the area, arresting 170 over two days. The slow methodical approach that we saw from police Friday seemed to be replaced with a much tougher line today.

COVID-19 public health measures descended on Quebec City on Saturday for the second weekend this month.Inspired by the so-called Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa, horns could be heard as several dozen vehicles, including trucks and tractors, arrived outside the provincial legislature late Saturday morning.It was a mostly festive atmosphere, as some people were dressed up in cartoon character costumes, stuffed animals were handed out to children and music played.It was the second large demonstration against public health measures in the province in two weeks.Since the last one in early February, the Quebec government announced it is phasing out its vaccine passport system and intends to get rid of most COVID-19 health measures by March 14.But protest organizers, addressing the crowd outside the legislature, said they wanted more concessions from the provincial government.Organizer Bernard Gauthier called the tone of the protest “peaceful,” adding he hoped the provincial government would return the favour without specifying any demands.Meanwhile, others called for an end to the provincially-declared health emergency and mandatory masks for school-aged children.Demonstrator Christian Martel said he wanted to see an end to mandatory masking in classrooms.“The pandemic is over, we have to end everything. We’re tired, it’s enough,” said Martel.Some demonstrators said they would also like assurance that the vaccine passport system would not return.Last week, Quebec announced it would be phasing out vaccine passports, but Health Minister Christian Dubé warned it would reimpose the passport system if it’s needed during a new wave of COVID-19.

Ottawa’s Interim Police Chief Steve Bell said Saturday reviews of video footage will be done to ensure the “lawful amount of force was used” as police moved to clear anti-mandate protesters from the streets of Ottawa.

TRENTON - Gas prices continue to rise in New Jersey as crude oil prices remain high amid ongoing global tensions related to uncertainty over Russia’s intentions toward Ukraine. AAA Mid-Atlantic says the average price of a gallon of regular gas in New Jersey on Friday was $3.61, up five cents from last week. Drivers were paying an average of $2.72 a gallon a year ago at this time. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.52, up four cents from last week.

SAN FRANCISCO - Every day, DNA is routed through local, state and federal databases to identify suspected criminals. A technological breakthrough that’s allowed law enforcement to solve unprecedented numbers of crimes, its use has simultaneously garnered praise along with major privacy concerns.But this week’s revelation that the San Francisco police crime lab used a sexual assault victim’s DNA against her in an unrelated property crime case — and the allegation that it may be a common practice in California — has prompted a national outcry among law enforcement, legal experts, lawmakers and advocates.Police investigators allegedly used a sexual assault victim’s DNA, collected as part of a rape kit in 2016, to tie her to a burglary in late 2021, according to District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

It now "feels like the pandemic is over'', according to a frontline consultant.

See the tweet belowThirty years ago, Hepatitis B and C killed countless ppl globallyNow, Hep B has an effective vaccine and Hep C treatments cure ~90% of patientsSARS-CoV2 is a much simpler virusVariants may cause future waves but new treatments and vaccines have crushed the big threat.

An infectious diseases expert has called for a national governance review into Ireland's response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bill Gates during at Germany’s annual Munich Security Conference. 

BALTIMORE (MARYLAND) :

With B.C.’s pandemic picture looking more optimistic for the spring and summer, Keith Baldrey has the details on what Dr. Bonnie Henry says might be ahead for the fall.

There’s been an increased police presence over the last couple of weeks downtown, amid protests over pandemic restrictions and mandates. Shallima Maharaj reports.

An analysis of prescribing data from more than 80 countries found that global antimicrobial consumption declined prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers reported today in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.For the cross-sectional time-series analysis, researchers

FILE - An official MLB baseball sits on top of an MLB game-used base with a lock and chain around it to represent the lockout between Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). Major League Baseball on Friday canceled the first week of spring training games through March 4 in the first public acknowledgement of the disruption caused by the lockout.The announcement came with the work stoppage in its 79th day, and a day after economic talks between the management and the Major League Baseball Players Association lasted just 15 minutes.Negotiators are set to resume talks on core economics on Monday, and MLB said members of the owners’ negotiating committee will attend the session, just the seventh on the central issues of the dispute since the lockout began Dec.

EL PASO, Ill. - An Illinois pileup involving over 100 vehicles was reported Thursday night amid a severe winter storm, shutting down a 30-mile stretch of the highway for hours. Interstate 39 was closed through Friday between Normal to Minonk due to the pileup, the Illinois Department of Transportation said. Both directions eventually reopened nearly 24 hours later. Normal, Illinois is part of the Bloomington metropolitan area and is located about 130 miles southwest of Chicago.

PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia police have released new information after officers shot and killed a knife-wielding man they witnessed fatally stabbing his aunt earlier this week. The incident happened Tuesday, at 3:45 p.m. on the 2000 block of South Beechwood Street in Feltonville.Officers responded to a radio call for a person with a weapon, and met with a witness who told that that her son,  36-year-old Thomas Maisano, was inside a home and armed with a knife. The witness also told officers that her sister, 72-year-old Josephine Duggan, was also inside.Police say the four responding officers entered the home and saw Maisano on the second floor in possession of a knife.

Unlike a lot of people, Christian Siriano didn’t take a bit of a step back over the pandemic.

NEW YORK - The battle to unionize Amazon workers is intensifying after labor officials officially set a date for a union election in a Staten Island facility next month.The election, which will be held in-person, is slated for between March 25-30, confirmed the National Labor Relations Board Thursday. The ballot count will be conducted on March 31. An independent and fledgling group called the Amazon Labor Union is spearheading the push.Meanwhile, Amazon workers in a Bessemer, Alabama facility are voting by mail for the second time on whether to form a union.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. - As Los Angeles County residents endure rising crime and increasing homelessness, Sheriff Alex Villanueva is slamming what he describes as a political push fueled by defund police activists to fire 4,000 sheriff department employees who have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus.Villanueva, who oversees the largest sheriff's department in the nation, said he’s the "only one left standing" when providing counterbalance against the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which has progressive Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón "in their back pocket." RELATED: LA County Supervisors move to take COVID vaccine enforcement out of Villanueva's hands"This is nothing but a power grab by the board. And it's shameful, and it's going to be harmful to public safety," Villanueva told Fox News Digital.

ivermectin did not prevent patients with Covid-19 from becoming severely ill, a study by Malaysian researchers has revealed. 

World Health Organization (WHO) said. Genomic sequencing is one of the best methods to identify new variants of the virus. 

What is ‘COVID-somnia’? Why some can’t sleep during the pandemic The frequency of nightmares was similar for the two groups before the outbreak of the pandemic. However, the frequency of nightmares increased by 50 per cent in the group that had COVID-19 and by 35 per cent in the control group.

West Health and Gallup. The survey was conducted by web Sept. 27-30 and Oct.

Three months ago, rice farmer William Lebango put his three-year-old son, Stuart, to bed and sat eating supper on the porch of the small mud-brick home in central Tanzania he shares with his wife and three children.Suddenly, from inside, they heard a blood-curdling scream. While Stuart was asleep, a rat had climbed inside his mosquito net and bitten his leg. ‘We ran in and searched for the rat and found it hiding in his bed,’ Lebango recalls, cradling his son and showing his scar from the rat bite.

Elon Musk compared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Adolf Hitler in a tweet that appeared to support truckers protesting vaccine mandates – and which immediately triggered a storm on Twitter.Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Inc TSLA.O, in late January tweeted support for the Canadian truckers, who have shut down roads and bridges, drawing international attention to their opposition to health policies pushed by Trudeau’s government.Canadian truckers rule— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2022Responding to a tweet describing how Trudeau’s government had ordered banks to help cut funding to the protesters, Musk posted a meme of a photo of Hitler, with “Stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau” written above his head and “I had a budget” below it.Tesla did not respond to an email requesting further comment.The tweet came as Musk and Tesla on Thursday accused the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of an “endless” investigation to punish Musk for criticism of the U.S.

Windsor, Ont., is calling for residents to treat one another as human beings after police charged a woman for allegedly threatening to bomb his home over COVID-19 mandates.Windsor police said they arrested the 31-year-old woman Thursday for a social media post on a thread about COVID-19 and pandemic mandates. They allege she made the comments Monday, a day after a protest was cleared at the Ambassador Bridge.“Regardless of your opinion on vaccinations or Justin Trudeau or myself or Doug Ford, we all just have to step back and take a breath and realize that we’re dealing with human beings and that we all have more in common than differences,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said in a phone interview.

Ontario’s education minister says the province is providing the education system with more than $26 billion. As Morganne Campbell reports, the province is also reinstating EQAO testing for Grade 3 and 6 students.

FILE - Traffic moves along Interstate 80 on Feb. 16, 2022 in Berkeley, California.

Freedom Convoy” blockades in the downtown core, hours after warning participants that their window to leave the city of their own accord was rapidly closing.Video footage recorded by Global News of the arrests appeared to show more than one individual being taken into police custody, but the identities of the individuals are not yet clear.The declaration of a state of emergency by the federal government on Monday means the area where the individuals were arrested, on Wellington Street across from Parliament Hill, is a prohibited place of assembly. Live updates on the continued convoy blockade in Ottawa Only Ottawans with a “lawful” reason for being in the downtown core are permitted to do so, after police established a security perimeter on Day 21 of the continued blockade amid signals that they are preparing to end the demonstration that has paralyzed Ottawa.“Overnight and throughout the day, residents are seeing a major increase in the number of police officers on our streets.

show proof of vaccination plus booster shot (if eligible) and proof of a negative COVID-19 test.“I want to apologize to y’all for not being at the Screen Actors Guild Awards,” Smith explained in a now-deleted video on his Instagram account. “I mean no offense to anyone. I’m not vaccinated, and it’s a requirement to be vaccinated.”The “Hell or High Water” actor then opened up further about his anti-vax beliefs.

Derren Brown had people blaming him for Covid. The mastermind illusionist has been keeping our mouths agape for more than two decades in TV shows like Apocalypse, The Heist, Pushed to the Edge and Russian Roulette.

Terminal V Festival is all set to welcome techno fans back through its gates after an extremely difficult and trying two years through the coronavirus pandemic.

The mystery illness ‘Russian flu’

Addressing the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meeting being held virtually, Sitharaman urged for a need to evolve methodologies to plug funding gaps between multilateral institutions as low and middle income countries did not have enough resources to face these challenges on their own. Sitharaman emphasized on addressing structural bottlenecks to reduce the pandemic’s scarring effects and building resilience.She suggested that the economic recovery measures be built around a long term vision. Sitharaman pressed for a need for a pool creation so a future pandemic wouldn't make it worse for middle or low income countries.Emphasizing multilateral support, Sitharaman said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) needed to augment its capacity and mobilise global resources, especially as low and middle income countries had limited fiscal space to fund health and climate issue related matters.The Finance Minister said that it was crucial to address the gaps in global pandemic preparedness and said that the work of the G20 Joint Finance and Health Task Force should progress in that direction.However, Sitharaman pointed out that India prioritized spend and allocated $29 billion towards health infrastructure mission, where health insurance was assured for the poor and for the low income groups.

As concerns over government overreach swirl for the now-invoked Emergencies Act, debates are set to ensue in Parliament on whether it is necessary. David Akin explains the new measures the government hopes will end the disruptive protests, and which political parties will be supporting or pushing back against them.

Seven of 10 US physicians say that the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened drug supply chain problems, limiting their ability to provide quality patient care, according to a new US Pharmacopeia (USP) survey.

RELATED: Remote schooling means snow days could become optional in NJIn Washington Township, New Jersey, Superintendent Jeffrey Mohre said remote learning or not, he’ll still call snow days."Easiest decision I’ve had to make all year," Mohre said in 2020.Young lions at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, made the most of recent snowy weather on Jan. 19, running around and playing in the powder.

COVID-19 patients in the hospital are dropping, he still figures it could be months before the facility will be able to return to pre-pandemic surgical volumes.Dr. Craig Ainsworth, director of the cardiac care unit at Hamilton General Hospital, told 900 CHML’s Hamilton Today that Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is still only operating at 50 to 60 per cent of surgical activity levels which will delay some non-urgent and non-emergent services.“It would be silly for me to say we’ll be back at 100 per cent by tomorrow or next week, but we’re trying very hard to get to get there as fast as we can, but it’s likely going to be months,” said Ainsworth.

Freedom Convoy” blockade of downtown Ottawa are being warned by police to “leave the area now” as questions heat up about when police will act to remove the demonstrators who have paralyzed the nation’s capital for 20 days.“You must leave the area now. Anyone blocking streets, or assisting others in the blocking streets, are committing a criminal offence and you may be arrested.

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BBC Radio 2 presenter admitted that the breakup “hit him round the face” as he “never thought’ he would experience something like it.Speaking on his podcast Ry-Union, the Strictly: It Takes Two host confessed the split was “really hard to deal with”.He explained: “I’ve never in my life thought that I would go through a crisis like that."But I did, ultimately, and it literally hit me round the face like a baseball bat, because I always thought I was too strong for it."Like, I’m never going to let anything like that happen to me, but then it does and it’s really, really hard to deal with.”Earlier this month, Rylan sparked concerns over his health after being rushed to hospital over a bout of ill health.The reason for his hospitalisation was not confirmed, but he previously told his fans he had come down with the flu and was bedridden for a few days.Due to his health issue, Rylan could be set to miss his Rylan On Saturday radio show for the second week in a row.He has been temporarily replaced on the BBC Radio 2 show by presenter OJ Borg.It has not yet been confirmed whether Rylan will be well enough to host the show this weekend.But yesterday the TV star shared a new update to let fans know he will be “back soon”.In an Instagram post, Rylan gave his 1.5 million followers an insight into how he is keeping his spirits up while he receives treatment.He uploaded a picture of a huge jar filled with Kinder Happy Hippos with a tower of boxes of the popular chocolate visible in the background.The snap also showed a pile of Nutella and breadsticks.Rylan captioned the post: “Whenever I feel ill I turn into such a child.“Resting up be back sooooooon.” (sic)Fans promptly took to the post’s comments section to send Rylan their

GENEVA :