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Coronavirus

Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus outbreak today: Closing U.S. borders to Europe. After being criticised for his government's response to the coronavirus outbreak, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out all the stops on Wednesday with a month-long travel restriction to the United States from Europe. This order does not apply to Britain or to Americans undergoing "appropriate screenings," Trump said.

The move added to the panic and confusion, not least among those who now have to reconsider travel plans. Flights from Europe can operate to a limited number of U.S. airports with enhanced screening, but only U.S. citizens, permanent residents and immediate family members will be allowed in, severely denting the passenger base and hurting the U.S. tourism industry.
The news hit financial markets hard, with stocks diving and oil slumping, as investors were disappointed by the lack of broad measures to offset a likely fall in consumption.

No pressure, Lagarde. After moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of England, Christine Lagarde faces her biggest test as European Central Bank president today and she doesn’t have much of an arsenal to throw at the coronavirus crisis. Expectations are high for a range of measures – more cheap loans for banks to pass on to small companies, a rate cut and perhaps even a step-up in the bank's stimulus programme.
But Lagarde, who has encouraged ECB staff to work from home if they wish to, will also stress that it is up to governments to react to the pandemic and they should use leeway in their budgets, a more powerful weapon than whatever the ECB can offer. She has told EU leaders inaction could lead to calamity on a par with the global financial crisis.

The spread. There are now more than 126,000 cases of coronavirus globally, after the World Health Organization called the outbreak a pandemic for the first time on Wednesday, and more than 4,600 have died, according to a Reuters tally at 0200 GMT on Thursday. Almost 7,000 cases were reported in the past day, far surpassing the average daily number reported in China during the virus' initial peak.
See Reuters interactive graphic of the spread.

Italy saw the sharpest increase in cases, with over 2,300 in 24 hours, accounting for a third of all new cases in the past day. A total of 196 people died in Italy over the last 24 hours, the largest rise in absolute numbers since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21.
China had eight new coronavirus infections in Hubei province, the first time the epicentre of the pandemic recorded a daily tally in single digits. More businesses reopened as authorities cautiously eased containment measures.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was criticised for being alarmist when she said the new coronavirus was likely to infect up to 70% of Germans.

World

Years of rooting out drugs at the Brazilian seaport of Santos had given customs inspector Oswaldo Dias a good nose for suspicious cargo. A shipment of second-hand backhoes, bound for Europe late last year, seemed fishy. Read our Special Report on how Brazil's gangs have emerged as major cocaine exporters, flooding Europe with white powder.

When the current European Commission took office in December, its president, Ursula von der Leyen, created the role of a commissioner for ‘Promoting our European Way of Life’ and handed the job to a Greek politician. The job title was originally ‘Protecting our European Way of Life’, but it was criticized for sounding xenophobic. Ironically, it is Greece that now finds itself caught between promoting and protecting what the EU stands for as it faces a refugee crisis.

In the sun-baked scrubland of northern Colombia’s remote La Guajira province, a bitter quarrel rages between two neighboring Wayuu indigenous families, one of them seeking refuge from a humanitarian crisis across the border in Venezuela. Such conflicts over land, water and animals are increasingly common as Venezuela spirals into disaster and thousands of indigenous Wayuu who once left their Colombian homes for Venezuela return.

Turkish and Russian officials have largely reached an agreement on details of a ceasefire in Syria’s Idlib region during talks in Ankara, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar was quoted as saying by state media on Thursday.

On a crag of rock called Brother’s Point on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, scientists have identified two bustling footprint sites that reveal an abundance of dinosaurs that thrived 170 million years ago including an early member of a celebrated group.