BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Soul Success Summit originally planned for June 12 has been rescheduled for Sept. 18 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The weekend-long Summit is a retreat for female leaders and entrepreneurs from throughout the world who seek to claim their power in the areas of spirituality, leadership, money, health and relationships.

“So many women called and emailed me worried that I was going to cancel the event because of this crisis,” said Founder Megan McCann.  “They are missing in-person connections, and I believe right now people need something to look forward to. We need to connect and not just via Zoom or FaceTime. We need to be in person, sharing our struggles and listening to our stories.”

The event will feature yoga, meditation and personal development workshops. Keynote speakers include McCann; Rose Jubb, founder of Style Class, and Jesse Johnson, a sales and personal development coach.

McCann will launch her new book “Soul Success, Stories and Lessons from Female Leaders who Turned Piles of Sh*t into Nuggets of Gold” on June 12. The book features irreverent humor about what it means to be a woman today and the sh*t women go through to come out on top. Local authors include Pirie Grossman, Kathryn Guylay, Jennifer Ludington, Jamie Green and Jaime Rivetts.

THE COUNT

Blaine County reported no new cases for the fourth day in a row. Idaho gained 26 new cases for 2,061.

Idaho has 64 deaths. Nez Perce County has 18 deaths and Ada County, 17.

COLLEGES TO REOPEN

College of Idaho in Caldwell and Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa plan to reopen campus this fall. What school will look like remains to be seen. A couple church schools in the Treasure Valley are planning on reopening this month.

BRIGHT BY TEXT

Idaho PTV has teamed up with Bright by Text, a free national parent texting program to put expert tips, games and child development information into the hands of parents in Spanish and English. The service is free.

To sign up, text IdahoFamily to the number 274448 and select your child’s age. You will receive two to four text messages a week with educational tips, links to learning resources and information from Idaho organizations.

KAYAK DISTANCING

Roaring Springs water park in Boise plans on reopening this summer. And Whitewater Park on the Boise River has already reopened. That said, the City of Boise will not open its municipal pools this summer.

MALL REOPENS

The Boise Towne Square mall will reopen Tuesday but not all stores will be open.

VANDALS STUDY BREAST MILK

The University of Idaho is teaming up with the University of Rochester-New York to determine whether coronavirus can be transmitted through breast milk. The schools received $315,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to administer the study.

WHY A MASK COMES IN HANDY

How far do droplets travel via a cough? Engineering professors at Florida Atlantic University say droplets travel up to nine feet within 10 seconds. They can hang in the air for up to three minutes.

When they put a mask on the coughing dummy the particles dispersed from the sides of the mask but they did not travel very far. Presumably, coughing into your hands or arm would help, too.

UTAH FLUB

Utah has stopped asking those arriving in the Beehive State to file online forms stating whether they had symptoms or had been in coronavirus hot spots. Only one of every 13 cars or airline passengers did so.

And residents of St. George and communities on both sides of the Idaho border complained that they  received texts asking them to declare all too frequently. One man said he was asked to fill out an online form every time he entered his bathroom, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

YOU’D THINK SOMETHING WOULD WORK!

Researchers are currently exploring at least 254 therapies and 95 vaccines for COVID-19, according to the New York Times. Typically, however, fewer than 10 percent of drugs are ultimately approved.

Researchers have a head start on the first phase of vaccine development, thanks to research spurred by the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which were also caused by coronaviruses. In fact, SARS and the COVID-19 virus are 80 percent identical, both using spike proteins to grab onto receptors found on cells in human lungs.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged to build factories for seven of the most promising  vaccines to expedite things.

FACETIME WITH AN EEL

A Japanese aquarium is asking people to FaceTime its 300 spotted garden eels as they’re starting to forget humans. Without regular human interaction, they’re burrowing in the sand when staff pass their tank, which makes it difficult for the staff to check on the eels’ well-being. The fear is that the eels may see people as a threat when they do return, according to The Guardian.

The aquarium is holding a Face Show Festival from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, May 3, to Tuesday, May 5, Tokyo time where it will install iPads near the tank. To join in, open the FaceTime app and enter Helpchin001@gmail.com. Then press “Video.”

CORONAVIRUS RUN AMOK

The governor of New Mexico has closed all roads into the city of Gallup, a town of 22,000 people in the state’s northwest corner, to mitigate the uninhibited spread of COVID-19. Vehicles can carry only two individuals and businesses must close between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m.

McKinley County, where Gallup is located, had 1,027 positive cases of the virus as of Thursday—more than 30 percent of the state’s totals. It reported 207 positive cases in two days.

Under the state’s Riot Control Act, anyone who fails to comply with the restrictions is guilty of a misdemeanor. Anyone convicted of a second offense is looking at a fourth-degree felony.