- Stranger Than Fiction
- Posts
- Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger Than Fiction
A brief daily note of things you might find interesting or useful
You can support my newsletter using PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, or purchase a subscription on Substack.Don’t forget to join us in the Stranger Slack for access to source documents and a running feed of news throughout the day.
TOP NEWS
Global markets resumed their declines, with the U.S. racking up a sixth straight negative close. All three major U.S. indexes slipped into correction territory—a drop of at least 10% from a recent peak.
European and Asian markets also fell and U.S. futures point to a continued sell-off still reeling from a constant flow of coronavirus fears. More than 83,000 people in at least 53 countries have now been infected.
Federal health employees interacted with Americans quarantined for possible exposure to the coronavirus without proper medical training or protective gear, then scattered into the general population, according to a government whistle-blower who lawmakers say faced retaliation for reporting concerns.
South Korea, the hardest-hit country apart from China, said it had 2,337 confirmed coronavirus patients as of Friday afternoon, up from the prior day’s 1,766. The tally has nearly doubled in just two days.
The FCC is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in fines from top carriers that it found failed to safeguard information about customers’ real-time locations.
Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was sentenced to three years in federal prison for a yearslong criminal scheme in which she illegally profited from the sale of her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s books.
THE ELECTION
THE COMMENT
“This virus has pandemic potential,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization on Thursday. “We are actually in a very delicate situation in which the outbreak can go in any direction based on how we handle it.”
THE STRANGEST
THE AV ROOM