Editor’s Note: Due to COVID-19, TommieMedia staff members are working remotely. This is a special News in :90 report from Abby’s home in Southwest Minneapolis.
Beaten down by the coronavirus outbreak, the world economy in 2020 will suffer its worst year since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest forecast.
The IMF said Tuesday that it expects the global economy to shrink 3% this year — far worse than its 0.1% dip in the Great Recession year of 2009 — before rebounding in 2021 with 5.8% growth. It acknowledges, though, that prospects for a rebound next year are clouded by uncertainty.
The bleak assessment represents a breathtaking downgrade by the IMF. In its previous forecast in January, before COVID-19 emerged as a grave threat to public health and economic growth worldwide, the international lending organization had forecast moderate global growth of 3.3% this year. But far-reaching measures to contain the pandemic — lockdowns, business shutdowns, social distancing and travel restrictions — have suddenly brought economic activity to a near-standstill across much of the world.
Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, the mother of Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns, died Monday due to complications from COVID-19 after more than a month of fighting the virus. She was 58.
The Timberwolves made the announcement via the Towns family, which requested privacy. The team initially said Cruz-Towns was 59. Karl Towns Sr., the father of the two-time All-Star player, was also hospitalized with the virus but has since recovered.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Cruz-Towns was a fixture at Timberwolves games from the start of her son’s NBA career. He was the first overall pick in the 2015 draft out of Kentucky.
This past summer, four Tommies worked together to perform experiments and collect data on something that many of us would not normally think about: meth, its anxiety-inducing properties and its effects on mice.
This research on adolescent and adult mice was conducted by Noah Robinson, Mikayla Newby, Hayley Ortman and Jonathan Acevedo last summer with their professor, Jessica Siegle, from the psychology and neuroscience department.
Abby Sliva can be reached at sliv7912@stthomas.edu.