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According to Amnesty International, the number of executions around the world in 2019 decreased by 5% compared to the year before. However, the number in the Middle East and North Africa increased by 16%, from 501 in 2018 to 579 in 2019.

Amnesty International's 2019 Death Sentences and Executions report noted that the number of executions in the world decreased from at least 690 in 2018 to at least 657 in 2019. That's the lowest number in more than 10 years.

All of the world's executions occurred in just 20 countries.

Amnesty says that China executed the most people in 2019. While the rights group estimates that the number is in the thousands, it is a state secret, and China was not included in Amnesty's global total. The rights group also did not have enough information to estimate the number of executions in North Korea or Vietnam.

Iran likely executed at least 251 people, the second-most after China.

Saudi Arabia executed 184 people in 2019, the highest number for a single year in the country, and up from 149 in 2018. A total of 178 men and six women were executed there in 2019, most for murder or drug crimes, and more than half of them foreigners. Amnesty says there has also been an increase in political executions.

Iraq's executions almost doubled from at least 52 in 2018 to at least 100 in 2019, making it fourth in the world. The increase was largely due to the execution of former members of the Islamic State group.

Yemen and South Sudan also had more executions. But for the first time since 2010, there were none in Afghanistan.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the number of countries carrying out executions dropped to the lowest level since 2011. In Japan, the number fell from 15 in 2018 to three in 2019. The number also fell from 13 to four in Singapore.

Globally, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Amnesty International wants the death penalty abolished in all countries.

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While people can't travel, the Faroe Islands are offering remote tours that let people use the internet to control a tour guide and see the archipelago's small towns and volcanic islands.

The tours were started to help sustain global interest in the North Atlantic islands, where tourism has recently become an important industry. It will also help people in lockdown see more of the world.

The idea is to make people want to come and experience the Faroe Islands in real life, said Levi Hanssen from the tourist board.

Local guides wear helmets with cameras on them and take online audiences across the archipelago while also providing information.

"If you ask them to go left, they go left. If you ask them to jump, they jump. If you ask them to run, they run," said Hanssen.

Nearly 50,000 people joined the first four-hour-long tours, which are offered for free, said Hanssen. Most people were trying to get one of the one-minute-long slots for controlling the guide, which are given to whoever signs up for them first.

The tours will continue until at least April 25 and will be shown on the tourist board's website, and on its Facebook and Instagram pages. There are also plans for a kayak tour, a horse ride and more.

The Faroe Islands are home to 50,000 people, most of whom live in Torshavn, the capital city. There have been less than 200 cases of COVID-19 on the archipelago and no deaths.

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Trump Ends US Aid to World Health Organization

President Donald Trump has said he is cutting off US funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing the organization of failing to do enough to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Trump claimed the outbreak could have been contained at its source and that lives could have been saved had the UN health agency done a better job investigating early reports out of China.

"The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable," Trump said at a press conference. He said the US would be reviewing the WHO's actions to stop the virus before making any decision on providing aid in the future.

The United States paid nearly $900 million towards the WHO's budget for 2018-19, according to information on the agency's website. That represents one-fifth of its total $4.4 billion budget for those years.

There was no immediate comment from the Geneva-based organization on Trump's announcement. But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded saying that now is not the time to end support for the WHO, calling the organization "absolutely critical" to the global effort to combat COVID-19.

When asked if cutting the WHO's funding was appropriate in the middle of a viral pandemic, Trump said the review would last 60 to 90 days. "This is an evaluation period, but in the meantime, we're putting a hold on all funds going to [the WHO]," Trump said.

The American Medical Association immediately called on Trump to reconsider his decision.

"During the worst public health crisis in a century, halting funding to the World Health Organization is a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier," AMA President Patrice A. Harris said in a statement.

Harris said international cooperation is needed to fight the virus, along with science and data.

According to John Hopkins University, COVID-19 has caused more than 142,000 deaths worldwide, including more than 31,000 in the US.

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A survey has found that South Koreans spent an average of 2 hours a day searching for information on the coronavirus in March.

Yonhap News Agency reports that two professors from Seoul's Yonsei University surveyed 2,035 people living in Seoul from March 14-21, including 18 people in self-quarantine. Those in self-quarantine spent an average of 2.3 hours a day looking for information on the virus.

South Korea reported its first case of the coronavirus on January 20. There were still just 28 cases by February 14, but the number had soared to 8,086 by March 14, the day the survey began.

One of the survey professors, June Sun-jae, said that people should not spend too much time searching for information on the virus because it could increase anxiety. The survey found that almost 60% of the people had feelings of depression, compared to 7.7% in 2013.

Writing in Yonsei Medical Journal, Sun Jae Jung of Harvard and Jin Yong Jun of South Korea's National Institute of Health agree that reading too much news can increase anxiety, and they also worry about fake news being spread about the virus.

They also note that quarantine can be linked to stress, depression and other mental health problems. They say that while several government agencies in South Korea have created guidelines to help people with their mental health, there must also be a public effort to avoid stigmatizing those with the virus, since people are already feeling isolated by being unable to work or go to school.

South Korea has been working to identify people with the virus and quarantine anyone they came in contact with. The number of new cases of coronavirus in South Korea began to slow by the middle of March, and there were a total of 10,564 cases by April 14, with more than 7,500 recovered. More than 500,000 people in the country have been tested for the virus.

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For the 18th year in a row, American adults believe nurses are the most honest workers, according to a Gallup poll.

The results show that 85% of US adults believe that nurses are honest or very honest, putting them above 21 other jobs like police officers, doctors, teachers and businesspeople.

Second on the list are engineers, with 66% of people saying that engineers are honest or very honest. Also in the top five are doctors, who received a score of 65%, and pharmacists, at 64%. The fifth highest score was for dentists, at 61%.

Police officers are in the middle of the list: only 54% of Americans feel they can trust the police to be honest.

People in the government are among the least trusted by Americans. Members of the US Senate are only trusted by 13% of the adults who took the poll. Members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives together only got 12%.

The lowest on the list are people who sell cars, at 9%.

The high number for nurses hasn't changed much over the years. In 2018, the number was 84%. In 2017, it was 82%, dropping 2 points from their 2016 score of 84%.

The poll was done at the beginning of December 2019. Gallup spoke to 1,025 adults in all 50 US states and Washington, DC.

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Today's topic is "How Finland Aims to End Homelessness"

In 1987, there were over 18,000 homeless people in Finland. At the end of 2018, there were fewer than 5,500. In fact, Finland is the only European Union country where homelessness is falling, which many credit to the country's "Housing First" policy, introduced in 2008.

People can become homeless for many reasons, from suddenly losing work or family support to drug or mental health problems. And most policies for helping the homeless require them to solve their personal problems before they can get housing.

But Finland's Housing First policy is based on the idea that having a home makes it easier to solve these problems. So people are given a permanent place to live as soon as they become homeless.

They still have contracts and pay rent, but they may get rent support from the government. They also get help with things like financial planning, applying for other benefits and more.

"Housing First means ending homelessness instead of managing it," said Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Finland's largest housing nonprofit, speaking to The Guardian.

Kaakinen says that giving people permanent homes means they use regular medical services instead of more expensive emergency services. Considering all the societal costs of homelessness, from health care to police and court expenses, he says that each person given a home saves Finland at least 15,000 euros, or about $16,000, per year.

Speaking to CBC Radio, Kaakinen said that the most important change was renovating temporary shelters into permanent housing. The last big shelter in Helsinki had 250 beds, but in 2012 it was renovated into 81 separate apartments with on-site support staff.

Finland's Housing First system also works with local communities to make sure that they welcome a new building for homeless people, while new residents pick up litter and take care of green spaces.

Housing First has been attempted in various cities and towns around the world, but Finland is the first country to do it nationally. Finland aims to completely end homelessness by 2027.

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Today's topic is "Most Japanese Students Happy to Join Online Classes"

More than half of Japanese university students feel good about taking classes online, according to a new survey from Nihon University in Tokyo.

Professor Tetsuya Usui from the university used social media to ask 1,572 university students how they felt about online classes, as schools around the world try to find ways to continue teaching during the coronavirus pandemic.

He found that 59% were happy to take part in online classes, reports Kyodo News, while 21% said they did not want to do so.

Usui also found that for online classes, almost 72% of students preferred video lessons to be available on demand, and only 15% said they would prefer live, interactive online classes. Just over 13% said they would like classes to be live but not interactive.

The Japanese government says that 66% of public universities and 36% of private universities are now offering online classes. Almost 80% of Japan's universities have also delayed the start of the year – which is usually in April – because of the virus.

Japanese universities aren't the only ones moving their teaching online. The Guardian reports that British universities Oxford and Cambridge will be doing their summer exams online. And in Singapore, the government has told schools to stop using video call app Zoom for online classes after hackers interrupted a geography lesson, reports the Associated Press.

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Today's topic is "US General Election to Be Biden vs. Trump"

With Bernie Sanders' decision to end his campaign, Joe Biden will likely represent the Democratic Party against President Donald Trump this fall.

Biden won't officially win the nomination until June, but with no Democratic rivals left, a general election campaign that will be among the most expensive and nastiest in history has begun.

In Biden and Trump, voters will choose between two men with dramatically different views on healthcare, climate change, foreign policy and leadership in an era of extreme partisanship.

At 77, Biden will become the oldest major party presidential nominee in modern history. Having spent most of his life as an elected official in Washington, no nominee has had more experience in government.

In Trump, Biden is up against an opponent unlike any he's faced in his political career. The 73-year-old Republican president has a huge cash advantage and a well-established willingness to win at any cost.

But before Biden can focus entirely on Trump, the former vice president must win over Sanders' far left supporters. Even so, Biden will move into the fall with a broad voter base that includes working-class whites, older African Americans and even Republicans unhappy with their party's leadership.

Biden has already started considering potential vice presidents, but with Sanders out of the race, he can move forward more openly with selecting his running mate.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has turned 2020 campaign logistics on their head and is likely to affect voter attitudes.

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Today's topic is "Jeff Bezos Still World's Richest Person Even After Divorce"

Jeff Bezos is the world's richest person for the third year in a row, according to Forbes magazine's 2020 list of the world's billionaires. As of March 18, when the list was made, the CEO of Amazon was worth $113 billion.

Bill Gates of Microsoft stayed in second place with $98 billion. Bernard Arnault and his family, owners of LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods company, moved into third place with $76 billion. Arnault took third place from investor Warren Buffett, who is now fourth with $67.5 billion.

Jeff Bezos, who started the Amazon company in 1994, stayed at the top of the list even though about $36 billion of his money went to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, as part of their divorce settlement. However, Amazon's stock went up 15% last year, making back some of what he lost.

MacKenzie Bezos got 25% of Jeff Bezos' Amazon stock, which is about 4% of the company. That meant she was on Forbes' list of billionaires for the first time this year, coming in at number 22.

Before she had even got the money, MacKenzie signed The Giving Pledge, which asks billionaires to give away more than half of their money. She said she will give away at least half of her money by the time she dies. Jeff Bezos has not signed the pledge.

According to Forbes, in the last year 267 people lost so much money that they are no longer billionaires, compared to 178 who are on the list for the first time. There are now 2,095 billionaires in the world.

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Today's topic is "Study: Irregular Sleep Increases Risk of Heart Disease"

A new study has found that not having a regular time to sleep and wake up can be bad for your heart. Having regular sleep was defined by the study as always going to bed and waking up within 30 minutes of the same times.

The study looked at almost 2,000 people between the ages of 45 and 84 for five years. Their health and living habits were checked, and they were asked to wear a device on their wrist for seven nights that measured when they slept.

The study's lead author, Tianyi Huang, from Harvard Medical School, said that those with the most irregular sleep times – more than a 90 minute difference on average over seven nights – were more than two times as likely to have heart disease over 5 years.

The study found that even after considering other things that can cause heart disease, like cholesterol, blood pressure and the quality of the person's sleep, having irregular sleep times still had an effect. Huang told CNN that this means irregular sleep should be considered a health risk.

About a quarter of those in the study had significantly irregular sleep times, which the researchers found surprising, since many were retired. Huang said that even more young people might have irregular sleep, since they are more likely to change their sleep times because of study and work.

If people get into the habit of irregular sleep when they are young, it could become dangerous. "The more you sleep irregularly, the higher the risk you have," Huang said.

America's National Sleep Foundation recommends sticking to your sleep schedule every day, and sleeping in for no more than one or two extra hours on weekends. You should also try to turn off bright lights late at night so you don't feel like staying awake, and let yourself see the sun in the morning so it's easier to get up. You should also avoid hitting the snooze button.

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