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Rare sea creatures, sometimes known as blue dragons, have been found washing ashore.

The peculiar animals washed up on the Padre Island National Seashore in Texas and were spotted by a seven-year-old boy, Hunter Lane, who was vacationing with his family from Arizona.

Hunters father, Trey, told CNN he had been visiting Padre Island for more than 30 years and he had never seen the blue dragons before.

The 'Blue Dragon' was found on a an island off the coast of Texas. Source: Facebook/Padre Island National Seashore

Hunter loves sea creatures and thought he had found a blue button jellyfish," Mr Lane said.

"After they picked it up in a beach toy he proclaimed to me that he had discovered a new species!"

Sadly for Hunter, the blue dragon or Blue Glaucus, is not a new species.

According to Oceana, the Blue Glaucus is a type of sea slug, or nudibranch, and they grow to be around three centimetres long.

Blue dragons are very small, generally only 3cm, but don't let their size fool you, they have a defence worthy of the name dragon, Padre Island National Seashore wrote on Facebook after the Lane family shared the photos.

Here there be dragons!

The Blue Glaucus is a type of sea slug and it preys on the Portuguese Man O War. Source: Facebook/Padre Island National Seashore

While sea slugs may not be the most interesting of creatures in the ocean, the Blue Glaucus do prey on a particularly large jellyfish, like the blue button jelly and Portuguese man o war.

Oceana explains Blue Glaucus prefer to feast on Portuguese man o wars, which have long, venomous tentacles, and while feeding the minuscule sea slugs will store the stinging nematocysts created by their preys tentacles.

The stinging cells are stored and concentrated for the future, so when the blue dragon is threatened or touched, it can release these stinging cells to deliver a far more potent sting than the Portuguese man o' war can alone, Oceana says.

Due to their painful sting, people are warned to keep their distance.

Blue Dragon, or Blue Glaucus can be found around the world in warmer areas. Source: Getty

The colouring of the sea creatures act as a camouflage, as they drift along the waters surface, upside down, with an air bubble in the stomach to keep afloat.

Blue dragons can be found in warmer waters and have been observed in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.

In the comments of the post Padre Island National Seashore shared, some people were shocked and said they had never heard of the strange slugs, while others said they had spotted them in the area in the past.

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Bizarre 'dragon' creatures found washed up on beach - Yahoo News Australia

WASHINGTON Wednesday was National Nurses Day, which is why that afternoon President Trump found himself surrounded by men and women who have been on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.

True American heroes, he called them.

But Sophia Thomas, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, was interested in using the moment to highlight a need her members were facing. Personal protective equipment of the kind needed to keep hospital employees safe was sporadic, she told the president.

Looking annoyed, Trump was quick to disagree. Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people, he said, claiming that he heard the opposite about the availability of respirators, gowns and other protective equipment. That equipment is especially critical in hospitals, where doctors, nurses and others face a higher viral load than others. Many nurses and doctors have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in the United States (the exact number is unknown).

The president continued to insist all was well. Ive heard we have tremendous supply to almost all places, he told Thomas. Tremendous supply.

Later that same evening, a young Texas doctor named Pritesh Gandhi posted a video that served as a vivid rejoinder to Trump. Standing in a hallway of the Austin, Texas, clinic where he works, Dr. Gandhi can be seen pressing his face into a plastic food container, of the kind that might otherwise be used to store uneaten spaghetti. He then gingerly lifts off the straps of his N95 mask, pulling them around the outside of the container, so that the mask is stretched tightly over its top.

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Instead of touching the N95 youre touching the Tupperware container, Gandhi explained to Yahoo News. The greatest risk to frontline health care workers is actually self-contamination, he added, and using a plastic container to remove and store the mask ensures that it wont be contaminated.

Gandhi did not invent the method, but he also did not expect to use it. As the associate chief medical officer at the Peoples Community Clinic in East Austin the poorer, less white part of town, away from its famed music venues and restaurants he may have expected to equip his doctors and nurses with necessary protective equipment. But logistical mishaps have prevented masks and gowns from getting speedily to many hospitals and clinics.

And so Gandhi and his colleagues have had to cycle through a supply of three masks each. While one is in use, the other two sit stretched across their respective plastic containers. After two to three days, viral particles those masks may have accumulated while in use would have diminished, although some studies do demonstrate detectable levels as long as a week after a mask is used.

Images of nurses wearing garbage bags and resorting to makeshift methods like Gandhis have proliferated, as has an attendant outrage. Im furious that @realDonaldTrump insulted a nurse practitioner b/c he had to face the truth, read part of his accompanying Twitter message.

The issue isnt just medical for Gandhi. The 37-year-old doctor and Texas native is now running to replace Michael McCaul, a pro-Trump conservative, as the U.S. representative for the 10th Congressional District in Texas. He is one of several doctors who had already been running for Congress, seeking to protect the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era health law that provided health coverage to millions of Americans. (President Trump and congressional Republicans have continued to vow that they will repeal the law, despite having already failed to do so.)

The coronavirus has given medical candidates like Gandhi a new rationale, not to mention a new visibility. In the last several months, doctors and nurses have been praised as heroes, celebrated as frontline soldiers in a war. And just like previous veterans, they are now seeking to bring what they have learned to Washington.

We as a country are recognizing the important role physicians can have in driving the conversation and being a part of policy, says Robbie Goldstein, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital who is running for a Boston-area congressional seat. He is seeking to replace Stephen Lynch, one of exceptionally few Democrats still in the House of Representatives to have voted against passage of the Affordable Care Act a decade ago.

Having declared for the Democratic primary last November, Goldstein did not anticipate treating COVID-19 patients or meeting prospective voters via Zoom. Now he is doing both. At the same time, he says the underlying rationale for his candidacy remains what it has always been.

The message is the same, and the goal is the same, Goldstein told Yahoo News. We as a country are recognizing the importance of health care.

Gandhi offers a similar assessment. It hasnt changed what were fighting for, he told Yahoo News of his coronavirus campaign. He is running on a progressive platform that includes addressing climate change and expanding health care coverage. But because the coronavirus has proved especially devastating to people of color, and because its economic effects have hit people of lower income, he believes that more Americans are aware of the very issues he has been seeking to highlight.

The virus, he says, magnified the preexisting inequities in American society. Those inequities are now the stuff of nightly news reports and social media posts. You cant unsee the trauma and the suffering, he says.

Not all the doctors running for Congress are necessarily Democrats. In fact, up the road (quite a bit up the road, this being Texas) from Austin, in the states northern panhandle, former White House physician Ronny Jackson is running in the Republican primary for the 13th Congressional District (the seat will be vacated by Rep. Mac Thornberry, who is retiring).

Dr. Jackson (a now retired Navy rear admiral who had been picked by Trump to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, only to have the nomination pulled over allegations of improper behavior) has been a regular in conservative media in recent weeks, touting his military and medical expertise. In one radio interview, for example, he discussed the need for the United States to reclaim some of its pharmaceutical supply lines from China.

Should any of these doctors make it to Capitol Hill, they will find plenty of medical practitioners to keep them company. These include Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who is a dentist; Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., who is a veterinarian; and Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., a pediatrician who entered politics to protect the Affordable Care Act.

And in the Senate, there is Rand Paul, a physician who contracted the coronavirus himself in March. The disease did not seem to affect him, and by April he was doing what he had been trained to do, volunteering at a hospital in Bowling Green, Ky.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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How one doctor is fighting coronavirus and Trump - Yahoo News

Enormous pressure is being mounted to use our current crisis as an excuse to transform how we vote in elections.

Coronavirus gives us an opportunity to revamp our electoral system, Obamas former attorney general, Eric Holder, recently told Time magazine. These are changes that we should make permanent because it will enhance our democracy.

The ideas Holder and others are proposing include requiring that a mail-in ballot be automatically sent to every voter, which would allow people to both register and vote on Election Day. It would also permit ballot harvesting, whereby political operatives go door-to-door collecting ballots that they then deliver to election officials. All of these would dramatically reduce safeguards protecting election integrity.

But liberals see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sweep away the current system. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that a mandatory national vote-by-mail option be forced on states in the first Coronavirus aid bill. She retreated only when she was ridiculed for shamelessly using the bill to push a political agenda. But Pelosi has promised her Democratic caucus that she will press again to overhaul election laws in the next aid bill.

If liberals cant mandate vote-by-mail nationally, they will demand that states take the lead. Last Friday, Californias governor, Gavin Newsom, signed an executive order requiring that every registered voter including those listed as inactive be mailed a ballot this November.

This could be a disaster waiting to happen. Los Angeles County (population 10 million) has a registration rate of 112 percent of its adult citizen population. More than one out of every five L.A. County registrations probably belongs to a voter who has moved, or who is deceased or otherwise ineligible.

Just last January, the public-interest law firm Judicial Watch reached a settlement agreement with the State of California and L.A. County officials to begin removing as many as 1.5 million inactive voters whose registrations may be invalid. Neither state nor county officials in California have been removing inactive voters from the rolls for 20 years, even though the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed last year, in Husted v. Randolph Institute, a case about Ohios voter-registration laws, that federal law makes this removal mandatory.

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Experts have long cautioned against wholesale use of mail ballots, which are cast outside the scrutiny of election officials. Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud, was the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker.

That remains true today. In 2012, a MiamiDade County Grand Jury issued a public report recommending that Florida change its law to prohibit ballot harvesting unless the ballots are those of the voter and members of the voters immediate family. Once that ballot is out of the hands of the elector, we have no idea what happens to it, they pointed out. The possibilities are numerous and scary.

Indeed. In 2018, a political consultant named Leslie McCrae Dowless and seven others were indicted on charges of scheming to illegally collect, fill in, forge and submit mail-in ballots to benefit Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris, the Washington Post reported. The fraud was extensive enough that Harriss 900-vote victory was invalidated by the courts and the race was rerun.

Texas has a long history of intimidation and coercion involving absentee ballots. The abuse of elderly voters is so pervasive that Omar Escobar, the Democratic district attorney of Starr County, Texas, says, The time has come to consider an alternative to mail-in voting. Escobar says it needs to be replaced with something that cant be hijacked.

Even assuming that the coronavirus remains a serious health issue in November, there is no reason to abandon in-person voting. A new Heritage Foundation report by Hans von Spakovsky and Christian Adams notes that in 2014, the African nation of Liberia successfully held an election in the middle of the Ebola epidemic. International observers worked with local officials to identify 40 points in the election process that constituted an Ebola transmission risk. Turnout was high, and the United Nations congratulated Liberia on organizing a successful election under challenging circumstances, particularly in the midst of difficulties posed by the Ebola crisis.

In Wisconsin recently, officials held that states April primary election in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. Voters who did not want to vote in-person, including the elderly, could vote by absentee ballot. But hundreds of thousands of people cast ballots at in-person locations, and overall turnout was high. Officials speculated that a few virus cases may have been related to Election Day, but, as AP reported, they couldnt confirm that the patients definitely got [COVID-19] at the polls.

In California, the previous loosening of absentee ballot laws have sent disturbing signals. In 2016, a San Pedro couple found more than 80 unused ballots on top of their apartment-building mailbox. All had different names but were addressed to an 89-year-old neighbor who lives alone in their building. The couple suspected that someone was planning to pick up the ballots, but the couple had intercepted them first. In the same election, a Gardena woman told the Torrance Daily Breeze that her husband, an illegal alien, had gotten a mail-in ballot even though he had never registered.

I think its a huge deal, she said. Something is definitely wrong with the system.

The Los Angeles Times agrees. In a 2018 editorial it blasted the states overly-permissive ballot collection law as being written without sufficient safeguards. The Times concluded that the law passed in 2106 does open the door to coercion and fraud and should be fixed or repealed. It hasnt been.

John Lieberman, a Democrat living in East Los Angeles, wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News that he was troubled by how much pressure a door-to-door canvasser put on him to fill out a ballot for candidate Wendy Carrillo. What I experienced from her campaign sends chills down my spine, he said.

What should also spook voters who want an honest election is a report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. It found that, in 2016, more mail ballots were misdirected to wrong addresses or unaccounted for than the number of votes separating Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. She led by 2.9 million votes, yet 6.5 million ballots were misdirected or unaccounted for by the states.

It would be the height of folly for other states to follow Californias lead. In the Golden State, it already takes over a month to resolve close elections as mail-in ballots trickle in days and weeks after Election Day. Putting what may be a supremely close presidential election into the hands of a U.S. Postal Service known for making mistakes sounds like a recipe for endless litigation and greatly increased distrust in our democracy.

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Mail-In Ballots Are a Recipe for Confusion, Coercion, and Fraud - Yahoo News

A day after the arrests of father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, the head of a state law-enforcement agency said a neighbor who recorded a video of the shooting is also being investigated.

Arbery, who would have turned 26 on Friday, was shot to death on Feb. 23 in Brunswick, a coastal city about midway between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida, after being chased by Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis, 34, in their pickup truck.

Arbery's family says he was out jogging, while the McMichaels have claimed they thought he was a burglar, according to the Glynn County police report. The McMichaels armed themselves because they believed Arbery might have a gun, the police report said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the McMichaels were arrested on Thursday on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault.

The agency's director, Vic Reynolds, said at a news conference Friday that the neighbor, William Bryan, is also being investigated.

"We're going to go wherever the evidence takes us," Reynolds said. "Let's say, hypothetically, if we believe tomorrow or in a week or three weeks there's probable cause for an arrest, then we'll do it. If we don't believe there is, then we won't."

He added that the video is a "very important piece of evidence."

Asked about the possibility that the McMichaels could be prosecuted for a hate crime, Reynolds noted that Georgia is one of few states without a hate-crime law. South Carolina, Arkansas and Wyoming also have no such laws, according to a U.S. Justice Department website.

Arbery is black, and the McMichaels are white. It's not immediately clear if the McMichaels have obtained attorneys.

In the video of the shooting released by Lee Merritt, an attorney for Arbery's family, Arbery is seen running down a road as a white pickup truck is stopped in front of him. Arbery runs around the vehicle, and a shot is fired. The video then shows Arbery and another man appearing to tussle as two more shots are fired.

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NBC News does not know what occurred before the events shown in the video.

Gregory McMichael armed himself with a .357 Magnum and his son grabbed a shotgun after Gregory saw Arbery "hauling ass" down the street, the police report said. The older McMichael told police that he thought Arbery was a burglar who had been recently targeting the neighborhood.

The two McMichaels jumped into their pickup truck and, along with Bryan, chased after Arbery.

The GBI said in a press release that Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery.

The police report did not specifically say whether Arbery was armed, but Merritt has said the victim did not have a weapon.

George Barnhill, one of the prosecutors who first handled the case, defended the actions of the McMichaels and Bryan. In a letter to the Glynn County Police Department, Barnhill said that the three had "solid first hand probable cause" to chase Arbery, a "burglary suspect," and stop him.

"It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived," he wrote.

Barnhill also noted that he watched the video of the shooting and said Travis McMichael "was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself" under state law because Arbery had initiated the fight and grabbed the shotgun.

The Georgia NAACP is calling for Barnhill's resignation.

"Theres no justification for why hes dead," the state chapter's president, James Woodall, said of Arbery at a news conference on Friday. "Theres no justification for the district attorney not to immediately issue an arrest."

The case was eventually handed over to District Attorney Thomas Durden in Liberty County after Barnhill and another prosecutor recused themselves because of potential conflicts of interest. Gregory McMichael is a retired investigator for the local prosecutor in Brunswick.

After taking the case, Durden asked that the GBI begin an inquiry Tuesday, and the bureau's Kingsland office started an investigation Wednesday.

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Neighbor of father and son arrested in Ahmaud Arbery killing is also under investigation - Yahoo News

Major League Baseball has decided to shorten its amateur draft to five rounds, ESPN's Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel reported Friday.

The decision comes after weeks of discussion between MLB and the MLBPA during the leagues coronavirus shutdown. The union hadpreviously agreedto the possibility of a draft as short as five rounds, but was pushing for a 10-round draft during talks. MLBs draft usually consists of 40 rounds, but the owners wanted to trim that number in order to limit spending during the coronavirus shutdown.

In total, 160 players drafted with compensation rounds still included. The combined value of the signing bonus pool for those picks is $235,906,800. The amount of signing bonus pool money eliminated is $29,578,100. That the league went to these lengths to save less than $1 million per team isnt sitting well with a lot of people.

The league reportedly made its decision after the union rejected a proposal earlier in the week.

The players had maintained hope for a longer draft, which would allow more players to gain entry and start getting paid. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and Ken Drelich reported that some teams were on board with a longer draft, since they were more interested in adding low cost talent than saving money. However, the support wasn't strong enough to gain approval.

As for the hundreds of others who would have been drafted but wont be in 2020, they will have a decision to make.

ESPN reports that players who go undrafted will be eligible to sign with any team for a maximum of $20,000.

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This could take the shape of a post NFL draft, with legitimate high school and college prospects being courted by all 30 teams at a price lower than their projected draft position.

The key is the money. How many of those prospects will be content being paid less than what they could have potentially earned 10 or 15 rounds into the draft? And how many teams will sit on the money saved? That will determine whether theres a signing frenzy in the hours immediately following the draft.

Thats another interesting question.

Given the affordable price, the first thought is that traditionally low-spending teams, such as the Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates, can finally compete for and sign a large crop of amateur players.

Unlike the other major sports, the draft is not the only way MLB teams can acquire amateur talent. The intentional signing period, for example, is often dominated by the big spenders, like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. The Marlins and Pirates cant keep up there, but could fare better under these circumstances.

While that possibility exists, the players will ultimately dictate which teams theyre drawn to. That could be determined based on opportunity, sentiment, geography or any other number of factors.

As many astute fans are pointing out, it could also result in concerning incentives and promises being dangled in front of young players. The league will have to closely monitor how this process plays out, because some teams will no-doubt be determined to sign players they otherwise would not have an opportunity to sign.

For players with remaining college eligibility, this might be the preferred option in 2020. Particularly for returning seniors. They could use that one extra year to boost value and hope the circumstances improve. Though theres no guarantee that will happen.

For incoming high school players, the decision could be more difficult. They have a three-year wait and might prefer to start their professional career now, rather than risking injury or devaluing their stock in college.

We already knew this MLB draft would be unlike any other weve experienced before. Now we know just how far-ranging those differences will be.

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MLB reportedly cuts draft to five rounds in cost-cutting measure - Yahoo Sports

Clorox chairman and CEO Benno Dorer is leaving no stone unturned in trying to get retail shelves fully stocked again consistently with the companys popular COVID-19 fighting wipes and other disinfectant products.

Even still, it may be a few months before things are back to some form of normal in stores (or more precisely, a new normal) and online from a product availability standpoint.

We have significantly increased our production. Weve done so by simplifying our lineup, which allows our lines to run faster. We turned out 40% more products last quarter than we did in the previous years quarter, Dorer explained in an interview with Yahoo Finance. Were activating party suppliers who produce for us to help us. And were investing in further capacity. So we continue to find new ways to speed up our lines and find capacity.

Dorer added, We think that theres going to be substantial improvement this summer [in availability]. Its going to be touch and go until then, unfortunately. But help is on the way, and I think things should ease up in the next few months.

As no shocker, Clorox has seen a substantial pickup in business amidst the pandemic.

Clorox bleach disinfecting wipes on shelf in grocery store, graphic element on black

Fiscal third quarter sales surged 15% from the prior year. Volume rose 18%. Organic sales increased 17%. Earnings soared 31%. Sales and pre-tax earnings in Cloroxs closely watched cleaning segment increased an impressive 32% and 71%, respectively.But the company also saw huge gains in Hidden Valley dressing and Fresh Step cat litter as people quarantined at home.

Clorox shares have skyrocketed 30% year-to-date, dusting (no pun intended) the S&P 500.

Dorer says the Clorox team is working closely with local enforcement agencies to prevent price gouging on its products.

There was an issue early on [with price gouging], but it's gotten a lot better. I see very little now I check every single day and I don't find anything right now, Dorer notes.

Continued Dorer, So to be very clear, we do not condone price gouging, we want to make sure that consumers at all times are able to buy our products at the regular prices, especially during this time during the pandemic. It's particularly important that our customers also sell at regular prices. So we're talking about independent third-party sellers. And we have worked with major online retailers to get them offline. We've also worked along with our industry association, the Consumer Brands Association, involving the Department of Justice, to help get people offline. And that's been working. We're continuing to monitor the situation, we're continuing to get people offline, every now and then it keeps popping up. But I would say it's no longer a broad scale issue.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-anchor of The First Trade at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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More Clorox disinfecting wipes are on the way to fight COVID-19: CEO - Yahoo Money

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that coronavirus lockdown measures in Scotland will be extended for a further three weeks.

Speaking at her daily COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, the first minister said: Our assessment of the evidence leads me to the conclusion that the lockdown must be extended at this stage.

Sturgeon insisted she would not be pressurised into lifting measures prematurely, continuing: The decisions we take now are a matter of life and death and that is why they weigh so heavily.

She added thatwhile really significant progress was being made in curbing coronavirus, the situation remains fragile.

Boris Johnson told leaders of the devolved nations on Thursday afternoon that he is committed to a UK-wide approach to tackling coronavirus even if different parts of the UK begin to move at slightly different speeds.

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the worldFact-checker: The number of COVID-19 cases in your local area6 charts and maps that explain how COVID-19 is spreading

A Downing Street spokesman said: During the call, the Prime Minister emphasised that this is a critical moment in the fight against coronavirus and that the Government will not throw away the efforts and sacrifices of the British people.

He was clear that we will not risk a second peak that could overwhelm the NHS and we will act with maximum caution in order to save lives

Members of the public walk in the Meadows in Edinburgh. (PA)

An announcement on extending the lockdown in England is expected at the daily Downing Street press conference.

Earlier in the day, the prime ministers spokesperson played down reports that any significant changes could be made to the lockdown as early as next week.

The spokesperson said Johnson told the cabinet that nothing would be done which risked a second peak in the outbreak and that he plans to proceed with maximum caution.

Boris Johnson is due to speak to the leaders of the UK's devolved administrations on the UK wide easing of lockdown restrictions. (PA)

The PM is due to make a statement on Sunday setting out his long-term plan to lift the country out of lockdown, following reports that restrictions on exercise may be eased on Monday.

Sturgeon hinted she may agree to allow people to exercise more than once a day but only if it is justified by a decrease in COVID-19 cases and deaths.

She added: The other possible changes that are reported in the media, such as encouraging more people back to work now, opening beer gardens, or encouraging more use of public transport, would not in my judgment be safe for us to make yet.

And I particularly strongly believe for us to drop the clear, well-understood stay at home message right now could be a potentially catastrophic mistake.

It comes as a total of 1,762 patients died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up by 59 from Wednesdays total of 1,703.

Sturgeon has previously said that the lifting of lockdown measures would likely be phased, and that measures could be in place into 2021.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during First Minster's Questions (FMQ's) in the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Recently, theScottish government also issued an updated a documentdetailing their strategy for transitioning out of the current lockdown arrangements.

Lockdown measures have been cautiously lifted in countries that are already ahead of the UK, including Germany, Italy and Spain.

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Lockdown will be extended for another three weeks, Nicola Sturgeon reveals - Yahoo News UK

(Bloomberg) -- Oils rally resumed -- after prices doubled over five days -- amid optimism that output cuts are easing a huge supply glut and demand losses have bottomed.

Futures in New York rose above $25 a barrel after earlier breaking above their 50-day moving average for the first time since January. Russian oil production was down 16% in the first five days of May, Interfax reported, while Plains All American Pipeline LP sees close to 1 million barrels a day of Permian shut-ins in May. Output in North Dakota was down by 450,000 barrels a day, according to state data, though some shale drillers said they may restart output if prices rose above $30 a barrel.

OPEC+ began implementing 9.7 million barrels per day of production curbs on May 1, which along with some early signs of demand recovery has helped to ease fears the world will run out of storage space for crude and fuels. The Trump administration is pivoting to phase two of its virus response in an effort to reopen the nations economy.

While its possible the worst is over for oil markets, most analysts dont see a rebound to pre-virus levels of consumption for at least a year, with some questioning if it will ever happen. The risk of a second wave of infections in the U.S. as states reopen cant be discounted, while deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing may hamper the global economic recovery.

The Russian news suggests a faster full compliance with cuts versus the past, said Giovanni Staunovo, commodity analyst at UBS Group AG. Theres also likely some technical buying from momentum investors.

Winners from last months oil market rout are now starting to emerge. Hedge fund Westbeck Capital Management, which posted its best ever month in April after being short oil prices in the front of the curve, said the bull case for crude is now simply exceptional. Pierre Andurands commodities fund is now up almost 70% this year after further gains in April.

U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 8.44 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute reported, according to people familiar with the data. That would be the smallest increase since the week ended March 20, if confirmed by Energy Information Administration figures due Wednesday. Supplies at the storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, rose by 2.68 million barrels, the API said.

The markets focus will remain the state of crude oil inventories at Cushing and U.S. production, said BNP Paribas SAs Head of Commodities Strategy Harry Tchilinguirian. Last week, the market took some comfort from the fact that the pace of additions to Cushing storage moderated.

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Oil Resumes Rally With Prices Doubling Over Last Five Days - Yahoo Canada Finance

Overnight, Natural Gas broke above the $2.00 price level as we expected. On April 6, 2020, we published our research that Natural Gas was setting up a bottom pattern and that our seasonal analysis suggested April and May should prompt a price rally in Natural Gas pushing price levels above $2.40.

The current rally has broken above a price resistance level near $2.00 and the rally up to $2.40 may happen faster than we expect. Currently, our Daily Fibonacci price modeling system is suggesting the $2.35 area is the first area of resistance. Beyond that, the next level of resistance would be near $2.90. Beyond that incredible upside target, the Fibonacci Weekly data is projecting an upper target near $3.60.

We are not suggesting that Natural Gas could rally 90% over the next few weeks, but we are alerting you that a move to $2.40 seems highly likely after our incredible bottom call on April 6, 2020.

This Daily Natural Gas chart highlights the rounded bottom setup that prompted us to make the bottom warning. Skilled traders will see an inverted Head-n-Shoulders pattern where the head consists of a double-bottom pattern near the end of March and into early April. The opportunity to buy into Natural Gas below $1.70 presented a very clear opportunity with little risk.

This Weekly Natural Gas chart highlights the Fibonacci Price Modeling systems projected upside targets. The first target, near $2.40, is an easy target for a first profit level. The next upside target level for-profits should be near the RED LINE, near $2.55. Beyond that, if Natural Gas continues to rally, the next area for skilled traders to pull profits would be the $2.95 level. Any move higher beyond that level would be a gift with a target level near $3.60.

Overall, this has been an excellent trade. We got our members into this trade fairly early and are already pulling profits and trailing stops. It certainly helps to have the modeling systems and seasonal analysis tools we use to find these setups for our members but you can do it too. All it takes is a bit of skill and understanding of how certain markets operate within seasonal trends and setups. Otherwise, if you dont have the time to research every chart we can do it all for you and just send you the trades we are taking.

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As a technical analyst and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles in stocks and commodities. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for investing and short-term swing traders. 2020 is an incredible year for traders and investors. Dont miss all the incredible trends and trade setups.

Subscribers of myActive ETF Swing Trading Newsletterhad our trading accounts close at a new high watermark. We not only exited the equities market as it started to roll over in February, but we profited from the sell-off in a very controlled way with TLT bonds for a 20% gain.This week we closed out SPY ETF trade taking advantage of this bounce and entered a new trade with our account is at another all-time high value.

Ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth while others watch most of their retirement funds drop 35-65% during the rest of this financial crisis going into late 2020 and early 2021.

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Chris VermeulenChief Market StrategiesFounder of Technical Traders Ltd.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

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Natural Gas Breaks $2.00 On Upside Rally and Next Target - Yahoo Finance

ROME (AP) Italians strolled in the park, grabbed take-out cappuccinos and paid their respects to the astonishing number of dead Monday as the European epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic gingerly woke up from the continents first and longest lockdown.

Greece, Portugal and Belgium also eased virus restrictions, while Britain was poised to soon overtake Italy as the country with the most confirmed COVID-19 dead in Europe.

Officially, 4.4 million Italians were allowed to go back to work at construction sites, factories and manufacturing jobs deemed to be at lowest risk for contagion. Traffic ticked up in city centers, commuter and long-distance trains sold out and more people ventured out after restrictions on movement eased for the first time since Italy locked down March 11.

We are being careful, trying not to do too many things, but at least we are finally outside and breathing some fresh air, said Daniele Bianchi as he strolled through Romes Villa Borghese park.

Across the Tiber in Villa Sciarra, Valerio Pileri stood by the stroller as his 2 1/2 year-old grandson scampered in the grass.

He was going around and around again on the terrace with his bike, but its not the same as the villa, Pileri said.

Protective masks were ubiquitous even the Swiss Guards started wearing them at the Vatican and were required on public transport and inside cafes, restaurants and gelato shops that opened for take-out service.

But not all businesses that could reopen did, a sign that some owners decided it wasnt worth it to serve a handful of customers or hadnt managed to implement new social distancing and hygiene standards.

And any newfound sense of freedom was clouded by the first comprehensive reckoning of just how great a toll COVID-19 had taken.

Italys national statistics agency reported Monday that 49% more people died in March than the average over the past five years, with some 25,354 excess deaths registered from Feb. 20-March 31, the height of Italys outbreak.

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Since only 13,700 of those deaths were confirmed positive for the virus, Italys official COVID-19 toll of 29,000 is likely off by more than 10,000. The other deaths likely involved infected people who were never tested or people who died as an indirect result of the pandemic because the hospital system collapsed in the north, ISTAT said.

For the first time in two months, Italians were able to honor some of those dead with funerals, though attendance was limited to 15 people. Cemeteries also reopened for visits, with mourners told to keep their distances from one another.

I feel a bit out of my comfort zone but my daughter is here, and as soon as the cemetery opened I came, said Paola Lazzaro as she visited her daughters grave at Romes Flaminio cemetery.

In Milan, passengers on sold-out south-bound trains had their temperatures taken before they boarded, and commuter Gabriella Fusca said she felt safe making the trip to Rome.

All the distances were respected. Everybody was wearing face masks, she said.

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala praised the morning commuters, saying access to the metro had to be blocked just a few times and that some buses had to skip stops because they were too full to take on new passengers.

Milanesi behaved in a very diligent way, he said.

Luxury carmaker Ferrari relaunched production Monday, after purchasing 800 blood tests for Ferrari employees and their families to use on a voluntary basis. The company is also developing its own contact tracing system, so workers can determine if they have been in contact with anyone who tested positive.

Italy is also planning to test 150,000 with a pilot antibody test and roll out a mobile contact-tracing application, but both initiatives are behind schedule and missed the start of the country's economic reboot.

In Greece, after 42 days of lockdown, people were no longer required to send an SMS or carry a self-written permit justifying why they were outdoors. Greece has been credited with keeping its number of deaths and critically ill down with its early lockdown, registering just 144 victims and 37 in intensive care.

Some businesses were also allowed to re-open, with hairdressers appearing among the most popular.

Konstantina Harisiadi installed plexiglass barriers at the reception and manicure stations and a sign read Silence is security to discourage chit-chat and limit the potential for virus transmission.

Things are different. Theres no spontaneity - we cant greet each other, speak, laugh. Were entering a new era, she said.

The sentiment was shared in Italy.

The future is a big question mark, said Gianni Berra as he served his first cappuccinos of the day to a take-out only customers in Rome. The normal welcoming bar environment will not be there anymore."

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Elena Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. AP writers Colleen Barry in Milan and Trisha Thomas, Francesco Sportelli and Paolo Santalucia contributed from Rome.

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Italy eases virus lockdown, and gets first reckoning of toll - Yahoo News