The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, just buzzed every television and radio in the U.S. with its latest test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS).To get more news about eas tag, you can visit estar-eassystem news official website.

The alert test went out on televisions and radios at 2:20pm ET (11:20am PT).

“THIS IS A TEST of the National Emergency Alert System,” the message read. “If this had been an actual emergency an official message would have followed the tone alert you heard at the start of this message. No action is required.”

FEMA’s EAS is one of several systems in place to communicate emergency messages to the public on a massive scale.

The first nationwide test was in 2011 and the tests have run several times up to October 2018. This was the first nationwide test of the system this year, and the fifth test to date.

As mobile devices became more common across the U.S. population than televisions and radios, FEMA began working on the Wireless Emergency System to send notifications to smartphone users. It was designed to allow the sitting president to send a message to all U.S. phones in the event of national emergency. Its first test ran last year after a short delay following Hurricane Florence on the east coast.

Today’s EAS test, however, was to measure the system’s readiness to alert in the absence of cell service or internet connectivity.

“Other radio and television broadcast and cable stations in each state that monitor PEP stations will receive and broadcast the test message so that within minutes the test message should be presented by all radio and television, cable, wireline service providers and direct broadcast satellite service providers nationwide,” said FEMA in a blog post.

The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China reached 1,770 as of the end of Sunday, up by 105 from the previous day, according to the country's National Health Commission.To get moreShanghai breaking news, you can visit shine news official website.

At least 100 of the new deaths were from the province of Hubei, the epicentre of the epidemic, the commission said on Monday morning. Across the country, there were 2,048 new confirmed infections, about 1,933 from Hubei alone, pushing the new total to 70,548.On Sunday, Hubei announced tough new measures to try to curb the outbreak, ordering its cities to block roads to all private vehicles. Meanwhile, a newly published speech revealed Chinese President Xi Jinping was aware of the potential severity of the outbreak long before the public was informed.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Chinese medical data shows that more than 80 percent of patients have mild symptoms and will recover, while 14 percent suffer from severe complications such as pneumonia, 5 percent are in critical condition and 2 percent die from the disease.

"It appears that COVID-19 is not as deadly as other coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva, adding that officials were starting to get a clearer picture of the outbreak.

The UN health agency's chief also said that children were not suffering from COVID-19 the same as adults and that the risk of death increases the older you are. 
Chinese doctors 'using plasma therapy' on patients
Doctors in Shanghai are using infusions of blood plasma from people who have recovered from the coronavirus to treat those still battling the infection, reporting some encouraging preliminary results, said Lu Hongzhou, professor and co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre.

According to Hongzhou, the hospital had set up a special clinic to administer plasma therapy and was selecting patients who were willing to donate. "We are positive that this method can be very effective in our patients," he said.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Mike Ryan, the head of WHO's health emergencies programme, said using convalescent plasma was a "very valid" approach to test, but that it has to be carefully timed to maximise the boost to a patient's immunity.

"You are essentially giving the new victim's immune system a boost of antibodies to hopefully get them through the very difficult phase," Ryan said, cautioning, however, that the method is not always successful.The latest data provided by China on people infected indicates a decline in new cases but "every scenario is still on the table" in terms of the epidemic's evolution, according to Tedros.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the WHO chief cited a new Chinese medical report that analyses more than 44,000 COVID-19 cases.

Asked whether the outbreak was a pandemic, Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said: "The real issue is whether we are seeing efficient community transmission outside of China and at the present time we are not observing that".

Separately, WHO expert Sylvie Briand said the health agency was working closely with Japanese authorities and the chief medical officer on the Diamond Princess docked off Yokohama on infections and evacuations, adding: "Our focus is on our public health objective that we contain the virus and not contain the people".

A truly wild video has gone viral in recent weeks, showing what looks like a cut of writhing raw meat crawling off a plate at a restaurant. But there's likely more to the video than meets the eye.To get more news aboutnews in english video, you can visit shine news official website.

The clip has gained coverage from tabloids and other news sources, often dubbing the slab of meat a "zombie chicken." It's just the latest in a long line of viral videosshowing soon-to-be-eaten animals fighting back.

It's easy to see why this latest video has gotten so much attention: The clip is a mesmerizing, unnerving seven seconds of footage.

The slab of meat begins at rest on a plate near the edge of a table. Then a protrusion — an arm, a leg, or perhaps a tentacle — pops out.t started gaining attention in an English-language post two weeks ago. But the footage has been been circulating for over a month from multiple sources, including a Chinese-language Facebook group.

There's little evidence the meat depicted is chicken, an expert told USA TODAY. And several eagle-eyed experts have questioned the legitimacy of the video.Dr. Amit Morey, an assistant professor of poultry sciences at Auburn University, warns viewers to be cautious.

"What they're showing is too extreme," he said to USA TODAY. "For a chicken to twitch, you have to immediately kill it and debone it and place it on the plate."

Raw chicken served at restaurants, Morey explained, has already gone through the full process of death after it's slaughtered. He said the chicken, by the time it was served, must have already gone through rigor mortis, causing its nerve endings to have already calmed down.For something like twitching to happen or for a muscle to do something like that, it has to be done right then and there," he said.

He said that a more likely explanation is that the meat is a frog leg. Salt can cause frog muscles to contract and move around, making it look like it's still alive.When Snopes.com fact-checked the video Friday, the site also suggested the meat could be frog. But at least one expert disagrees.

When Dr. John Wiens — a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona — first watched the video, he was stumped and amused.

"I don't see how a frog could do that," he told USA TODAY, laughing. "What the hell?"

"I'm definitely not going to commit to it being a frog. Maybe a piece of fish or something?"

A horrific video of high school students beating a classmate that went viral in Fiji last week has prompted calls for a national inquiry into what is being dubbed a “crisis” of bullying in schools in the Pacific nation.To get more about videos of the news, you can visit shine news official website.

Opposition MPs, civil society organisations and experts are calling for an inquiry into what they claim is a “phenomenal” level of violence in schools, which some claim reflects a broader problem of violence in the country including high rates of domestic violence, police abuse and a “coup culture” in politics.

The three-minute video, which was reportedly taken last year, first appeared online on 1 March. It was viewed and shared thousands of times on Facebook, causing national uproar, before it was removed from the social media platform.

It shows three boys in school uniform beating a fourth boy with a piece of timber, as well as hitting him and jeering at him, as he cries. The incident took place at Ratu Kadavulevu School in Tailevu, about an hour’s drive from the capital, Suva.

The school’s alumni include national leaders such as former prime minister, Laisenia Qarase, Fijian diplomats and some of the country’s best rugby players.The country’s current prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, said he was “sickened and outraged” by the footage.

“It broke my heart – I saw my own children and grand-children in him, as I’m sure all parents did,” Bainimarama wrote in a statement.Sitiveni Rabuka, leader of the opposition and a former prime minister, has called for a commission of inquiry into the education ministry’s policies on school bullying and violence.

There were 6,594 recorded cases of bullying in primary and secondary schools across Fiji last year, according to a report from the education ministry.

The three boys have been charged with assault and appeared at the Sigatoka magistrate’s court last week. But there has been public anger that it took so long for the case to be reported to police when the assault was first reported to the education ministry last year.Vijay Naidu, a former sociology professor at the University of the South Pacific, and prominent Fijian academic, said the video revealed deeper and more serious problems about the culture of bullying and violence in Fiji.

“Bullying has been a longstanding problem … in schools and in many other institutions,” said Naidu. “Assaults are very common in the business of violence against women and sexual minorities. It’s all part of that continuum of violence.”

Fiji has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world, with 64% of women in the country experiencing physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner.Naidu said Fiji’s coup culture was also an example of how entrenched the problem is. There were four violent coups between 1987 and 2006 in Fiji. Both Bainimarama and Rabuka came to power in coups.

“The fact that people resort to bullets over ballots in this country is a prime example of the resort to the use of physical force,” he said. “In Fiji, because of the business of the coups and all that, it’s like might is right. The soldiers resorted to this and they have enjoyed impunity. The police and prison people have resorted to brutality.”

Fijian psychologist, Selina Kuruleca, said the data from the education ministry confirmed that school bullying was a “national crisis”, and that while the factors contributing to it were manifold, including the fact teachers were “overworked and underpaid” and struggling to mange “too many kids in one classroom”, the example of violence among adults also played a role.

“We also need to make sure that the rules apply right across the board. For our national leaders, we need to be mindful of our behaviour not only in private places but also in our public space,” she said.

Last year, Bainimarama was accused of assault by Pio Tikoduadua, an opposition MP for the National Federation Party, who alleged the prime minister grabbed and shoved him outside Fiji’s parliament in Suva, causing his glasses to fall to the ground and break.

This week marks the 119th Philadelphia Auto Show, showcasing dozens of car brands at the Pennsylvania Convention Center through Feb. 16. To get more auto industry news, you can visit shine news official website.

In that spirit, Penn Today reached out to John Paul MacDuffie, a professor of management at the Wharton School with research interests in the auto industry, its innovations, production systems, and management practices. Here, he chats about the unusual sales trends of the auto industry since the Great Recession, how the Chinese market—and electric vehicle technology—is shaping the industry’s future, and why auto shows of the past may be evolving.

What is the state of the auto industry as we go into the 2020s?

The auto industry is very cyclical and we’re in the middle of a downturn cycle in terms of sales. The cycles are always affected by many things, but there also seems always to be some built-in boom and bust periods in the industry’s history.

The global financial crisis was a huge and unusual and certainly unprecedented dent in sales—a 40 or 50% drop for most major automakers. And then there was a period, an unusually long period, surprising to many, of years that sales were way up. Basically, to compensate for the fact people were postponing their purchase decisions during the Great Recession. Automobiles are durable goods that last a long time, so you can keep a car on the road a little longer if for some reason it’s not a good time to buy. Also, when economies get stronger, people might upgrade earlier than they need to. There’s been new safety tech with a lot of new driver-assist features. When they feel more confident economically, people buy cars partly to get access to that new technology, either for the specific functionality or just because it’s exciting, or reassuring, to have cars with the latest features.

So, sales grew dramatically in the U.S. from 2010 (low of 10.4 million) to 2016 (high of 17.4 million). 2017 to 2018 was relatively flat, but 2019 is down somewhat to just under 17 million. Bear in mind that there are only two other years in U.S. history with sales higher than 2019–2000 and 2001. How much of the 2019 drop is because of tariffs and trade tensions, how much is the slowing of the Chinese economy—because China has been one of the high-growth bright spots in auto sales for many years—is a little hard to say. We’re certainly seeing profit announcements from automakers reporting losses and drops in sales. It’s not a complete surprise or a sign that the state of the overall industry is dismal. But it’s definitely a down period in that regard.

The other big thing to say is that the challenges the traditional auto industry faces are pretty huge. Some are exciting, too, but [it’s a balancing act] to keep the legacy business going, which is still about 100 million cars sold per year worldwide, while also investing in all these new technologies and new products and services—electric, yes, but also connected, and autonomous, and mobility services, so they’re not left entirely to tech startups. A lot of companies want a piece of that action in the new mobility future. That’s a challenge. It requires different capital allocation priorities, investment priorities, and strategies.

IAFN Award-winning funder Oodle Car Finance has closed its first asset-backed securitisation in a £350 million transaction designed to support further growth of the digital business.To get more china auto news, you can visit shine news official website.

The oversubscribed transaction saw demand from 14 European and international bond investors.Oodle aims to change the used car market by merging search and finance into one seamless digital process.

It has developed a dealer proposition that is designed to offer a more inclusive customer offering with fully automated, instant decisions, and a unique digital platform.

In addition to providing financial services to dealers and brokers, it is also developing direct to consumer services, including a smartphone app. Last year, the business also acquired car search engine Carsnip.

Oodle Car Finance founder and chief executive officer Jonny Clayton (pictured) said: “This securitisation is a game-changing milestone for Oodle, allowing us to drive our ambitious plans further forward and with the customer at the heart.

“A diversified funding base unlocks huge potential for our growth plans. It means more tech innovation and increased market collaboration.”Since its launch in 2016, Oodle has received more than £5.6 billion in applications and funded £660 million of car finance to more than 50,000 UK customers. In the past year, applications have increased by 330%.

The business employs a team of 280, based in its Oxford headquarters and across offices in London, Cardiff and Manchester.

Clayton said: “Our mission is 100% focused on empowering the consumer and revolutionising the car buying experience. At the same time, it’s vital that car dealers stay at the absolute heart of the used car buying process.

To lease or not to lease. That was the question that kept me awake for many nights last autumn.To get more auto finance news, you can visit shine news official website.

The vehicle under debate was a black Jeep Renegade Longitude, which my American wife wanted because it would remind her of her native California when she felt homesick.
Plunging into the realm of car financing, however, is a daunting experience, with a range of options that can leave even the financially literate scratching their heads. As the auto industry creates new ways to pay — and keep their vehicles rolling off the production line — Britain’s car buyers increasingly find themselves navigating a world of acronyms, interest rates, incentives and payment plans. One answer that is growing in popularity is leasing. Would it work for us? And what would it cost?

Our dilemma first emerged in last August, when a reminder from Fiat Finance fell on the doormat alerting us that the four-year personal contract purchase (PCP) deal on the Fiat 500 would end in December.

Under PCP — the most popular form of car financing in the UK — we would have three options: pay a final balloon payment of £4,522 and own the car, apply to refinance the balloon payment subject to credit status and extend our contract term or void the balloon payment altogether by upgrading to a new car and — here was the catch — exclusively within the Fiat Chrysler group.

No, they said. We were not contractually allowed to sell the car until the balloon payment had been made and we had taken legal ownership.
Seeing in cold black ink the full payment we’d need to make — £5,039 — my wife could suddenly think of far better ways to spend that money, starting with the shoes and earrings she’d just seen on Outnet. With a quick “Add to basket”, the decision to dodge the balloon payment and upgrade within Fiat Chrysler had been made.

Some still prefer an outright purchase. Helen Pilkin, a mother of two who bought her used Audi Q5 in cash, said: “I wanted to feel I owned it. I’m a contract-phobe and my brain combusts when I have to sign paperwork, as I don’t trust anyone. I know nothing about cars and actually walked out halfway through the paperwork and went back the next day as I was so overwhelmed.”

We decided against hire purchase, a self-financed loan or cash and in November 2015 signed a PCP contract with Motor Village Marylebone for a term of 48 months. This constituted a £950 upfront deposit, credit of £11,920 through Fiat Financial Services at an interest rate of 3.1 per cent APR, 47 fixed monthly payments of £179 and an optional balloon payment of £4,522 (also known as GMFV or guaranteed minimum future value) due at the end of the contract in December 2019.

The coronavirus is still spreading throughout China, but all over Wall Street, a consensus about the virus' economic influence is already solidifying.To get more latest china economy news, you can visit shine news official website.

The thinking goes like this: China will slowly get back to work by the end of the first quarter. Investors will stay fairly steady throughout this period knowing that coronavirus will result only in a temporary knock on corporate profits and general economic activity. Ultimately, like in 2003 when SARS gripped the nation, China will rally to a V-shaped recovery — that is, a quick fall in economy activity followed by a sharp return to normalcy soon after. Markets are overreacting.

This consensus is wrong. And it's wrong not just because we don't know if the consensus timeline is even remotely accurate — but also because the Chinese economy, and especially its banking system, is completely different now than it was in 2003.

The country's economy is growing much more slowly now (GDP growth has recently been about 6%, according to the government, compared with 10% in 2003), and the banking system is far more fragile and laden with debt."There's no reference point at all for what it feels like when China is truly in a recession across the board because they've been on a 30-year growth binge," Charlene Chu, a senior analyst at Autonomous Research, said. "The world is underplaying what's going on in China."

Chu described the coronavirus' influence on the economy as a "much deeper shock with a much different context." And in the middle of it all, local governments will still be under intense pressure to meet economic targets, and businesses will be under intense pressure not to fire anyone.

To understand the economic predicament the country finds itself in, you have to remember what was happening in China about a year ago completely aside from the trade conflict with the US. Last winter, you may recall, it seemed the Chinese economy might come apart at the seams, as credit had dried up for the private sector — which is where most of the country's growth comes from — and consumers dramatically slowed spending.

Then in May, Chinese regulators had to bail out a bank, Baoshang Bank, for the first time in decades. A few more bailouts followed, and suddenly banks became scared to lend to each other. By June, the Chinese Communist Party was forced to gather all the banks, tell them to get their acts together, and demand that they take haircuts on their investments in each other (a concept the bankers had lost familiarity with during the state's post-crisis credit spree).

It is no surprise, then, that the creditworthiness of the Chinese banking system has been trending downward, especially at the lower end.Because of the coronavirus, this weakened banking system — less than one year out from being on a bit of a brink — will now have to forgive loans for companies large and small and continue financing local governments dealing with the fallout from stagnating economies and the effort to fight the coronavirus. S&P research estimated that if this crisis is prolonged, bad debt in the banking system could increase from 2% at the end of last year to over 6%.

In this environment, some kind of liquidity event could be even more disruptive than it was in the summer.

"Banks will all be more sensitive to their exposure to each other. And they don't really know each other's risk," Dinny McMahon, the author of "China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans and the End of the Chinese Miracle," told Business Insider. "If there was a liquidity event, you might see a flight to safety very quickly, and how the banks define safety may be a bit more severe than it was last year."

And then, of course, even if the banks could forgive loans and ease credit conditions, that would only do so much. Some businesses simply may not be creditworthy after this economic shock.

"Much of the talk right now is about forcing banks to cut rates, but lower rates won't solve the problem if firms are insolvent," Leland Miller, the founder of the business surveyor China Beige Book, said. "So the issue isn't cost of capital, it's whether the underlying firms are ultimately creditworthy. Depending on how long it takes the economy to get back chugging, that number now may be substantially lower than what it was before the outbreak."

China has suspended a trading connection between stock exchanges in Shanghai and London, raising questions about the future of the much-hyped initiative less than a year after its launch.To get more Shanghai business news, you can visit shine news official website.

The temporary halt to the Shanghai-London Stock Connect comes amid rising political tensions linked to the UK’s response to anti-government protests in Hong Kong, according to a Reuters report.

A spokeswoman for the London Stock Exchange declined to comment. The Shanghai Stock Exchange did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Stock Connect was designed to link China’s domestic capital markets with the international investment community via a tie-up between the SSE and the LSE.

The initiative launched to much acclaim last June, when Huatai Securities raised $1.5bn by selling instruments known as global depository receipts and listing them in London. Stock Connect was hailed as a sign of China’s willingness to open its financial market to international investors; Huatai remains the only issuer to have made use of the link.

Reuters reports that the decision to stop Stock Connect was based on political tensions.

Hong Kong, the former British colony that has been under Chinese control since 1997, has had months of protests, often violent, over the influence wielded by Beijing. In November, China’s ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, accused Britain of “interference” in Hong Kong by covertly backing the protests, The Telegraphreported at the time.

These tensions could raise difficult questions for the UK as it prepares to adopt a more global approach to trade and business following Brexit. The relationship between China and the UK is crucial for the City of London, which has stepped up the amount of business it does with Asia in recent years.

The City has emerged as a major hub for offshore renminbi trading. There are more than 30 Chinese financial institutions in the Square Mile alone, according to the City of London Corporation and the People’s Bank of China.