Wouldn't it be amazing if the United States did this?

Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak said Thursday all self-employed citizens will receive a taxable grant of 80% of their average monthly profits as part of the government’s coronavirus response plan. Read the rest

Canada is not super cool with plans by impeached U.S. president Donald Trump to send a thousand (maybe fewer) U.S. troops to the U.S.-Canada border. Trump says militarizing the border is good because he's worried things will become so desperate in the U.S. with the pandemic, Americans will flee north to escape the oncoming coronavirus hellscape. Read the rest

Turkey's interior minister said today the government has arrested 410 people for making “provocative” posts on social media about the coronavirus outbreak, which continues to worsen in the country and around the world. Read the rest

• Trump demands economy reopen by Easter amid pandemic • Medical experts & disaster movies tell us this would be bad

“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter," is a thing that Donald Trump just said during a Fox News virtual town hall. Read the rest

Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced its largest gain in a single day since 1933. Read the rest

Hackers tried to break into the World Health Organization earlier in March, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, Reuters reports. Security experts blame an advanced cyber-espionage hacker group known as DarkHotel.

A senior agency official says the WHO has been facing a more than two-fold increase in cyberattacks since the coronavirus pandemic began. Read the rest

Some NHS medical staff in the UK feel like 'cannon fodder' over the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) against coronavirus, and on Monday the government said the military would help ship millions of items including masks to healthcare workers who have complained of shortages.

Frontline staff in UK hospitals treating COVID-19 patients have been begging for masks, gloves, face shields, and hazmat suits.

The situation is so desperate that some nurses and doctors were and are reportedly improvising by tying plastic aprons around their heads, and affixing clinical waste bags around their legs. Read the rest

'For the first time in our history, the government is going to step in and help pay people's wages,' Rishi Sunak announces

The UK government will pay up to 80% of wages for workers who are at risk of being laid off due to the coronavirus pandemic, the chancellor has announced.

The United States is not doing anything like this, or discussing anything like this.

Why isn't the purportedly richest and most powerful and most awesomest country in the world, ours, doing the same -- or something close -- for the millions of suddenly jobless workers? Oh yeah, a corporate tax cut instead. And a single thousand-dollar check, or something. Thanks, GOP Senate. Read the rest

Americans abroad must return to US or prepare to shelter in place

Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau is self-isolating at home after his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau began displaying flu-like symptoms, and took a test for coronavirus. Read the rest

"Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death"-@DrTedros

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Read the rest

Hello, bear market.

• Criminals are tricking people who want to buy protective masks

In the United Kingdom, vulnerable people who are afraid of coronavirus have lost more than 800,000 british pounds ($1 million in US dollars) to coronavirus scams in the last month. Read the rest

Sure, Jan.

“The risk to the American people remains very low,” Trump said, flanked by VP Pence and US public health officials.

“Rioters roamed the streets with iron rods and wooden sticks, demanding to know whether people were Hindus or Muslims. Mosques were damaged and shops were set ablaze”

The head of Iran's coronavirus government task force who urged the public not to freak out about the epidemic while coughing and sweating profusely has tested positive for the illness himself, authorities said Tuesday. New cases of COVID-19 originating in Iran are now rapidly popping up across the Middle East.

The coughing and heavily sweating Iraj Harirchi told journalists at a televised news conference in Tehran only one day ago that “the situation is almost stable in the country.” Read the rest