Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. MORE THAN HALF A MILLION INFECTIONS GLOBALLY The U.S. passes China with more than 85,000 coronavirus cases as Italy shut most of its industry and throngs of Indian day laborers received food rations after a nationwide lockdown.
2. FALSE BELIEF PROVES DEADLY IN IRAN Nearly 300 Iranians have been killed and more than 1,000 sickened by ingesting toxic methanol out of the misconception it kills the new coronavirus.
A sign by Wembley Park tube Underground station in London that thanks the hardworking health service (NHS) staff who are on the front line battling the coronavirus, Thursday March 26, 2020. A national salute for the frontline healthcare workers is taking place across the UK with a mass round of applause from doorsteps, windows and balconies on Thursday at 20:00 hrs. (John Walton PA via AP)
3. WHERE SCIENTISTS ARE SKEPTICAL Experts are challenging the accuracy of simple pin-prick blood tests or nasal swabs that can determine within minutes if someone has, or previously had, COVID-19.
4. VIRAL ENDGAME LEAVES EVERYONE GUESSING Public health experts caution that it would be reckless to lift restrictions before infections have peaked and begun to ebb, but also waiting months or years for a vaccine is not plausible either.
5. WHO MIGHT DELAY STIMULUS VOTE Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an opponent of the $2.2 trillion economic relief bill, may seek to force a roll call vote, forcing Democratic leaders to summon members back to Washington.
A migrant worker Ramesh Meena from neighboring state of Rajasthan carries her wife Ramila Meena, who fractured her leg, on his shoulder, as they leave for their village after the city comes under lock down as a precautionary measure against COVID-19 in Ahmedabad, India, Thursday, March 26, 2020. Some of India's legions of poor and people suddenly thrown out of work by a nationwide stay-at-home order began receiving aid distribution Thursday, as both the public and private sector work to blunt the impact of efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic. Untold numbers of them are now out of work and many families have been left struggling to eat. (AP PhotoAjit Solanki)
6. 'TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING ALONE' Dr. Kamini Doobay, an emergency medicine physician in New York, says many critically ill patients are not with loved ones due to a strict no visitors’ policy.
7. VIRUS PUTS STRAIN ON COUPLES It's a time when every domestic decision can seem to have impossibly high stakes, from going to the grocery store to deciding who gets quarantined together.
8. ‘I WAS AFRAID BUT I DIDN’T HESITATE’ Malak el-Kashif is perhaps Egypt’s most outspoken transgender woman activist, a label that in a largely conservative and patriarchal society has meant battling a war on multiple fronts.
CORRECTS TO REMOVE THIRD SENTENCE STATING THEY PROVIDE FREE MASKS TO NEEDY AS WELL - Joana Maciel holds up a protective face mask that she made, as she stands inside her home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, March 25, 2020. Maciel together with other women who volunteer at a nearby soup kitchen, make the face masks to use as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus. (AP PhotoNatacha Pisarenko)
9. R KELLY CITES VIRUS CONCERNS IN SEEKING JAIL RELEASE Lawyers for the R&B singer say hand sanitizer and soap are hard to come by in Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center and social distancing nearly impossible.
10. HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS GREAT DIES “Curly” Neal, the dribbling wizard who entertained millions of fans for parts of three decades, is dead at 77.