Viral News: As worldwide cases of the coronavirus approach 100,000, the leader of the World Health Organization called for international leaders to deploy the full power of their governments to fight the epidemic. 

  “This is not a drill,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization. “This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops.”

  Britain has had its first death. The victim is reported to have been a woman with no known contact with any other coronavirus patients. 

  The worldwide death toll is now 3,385 with 98,705 people confirmed to have had the disease. 

  Here in the US, despite promises that anyone who needs a test for the virus can get it, Vice President Mike Pence admitted yesterday that there are not enough testing kits. The US has reported 14 deaths and 225 cases.

  The Grand Princess cruise ship is holding 70 miles off San Francisco as passengers or crew showing symptoms get tested. 

  Americans are emptying the shelves of hand sanitizer and face masks. Price gouging has been reported.

  Appearing on a Fox News town hall last night, President Trump praised his own handling of the epidemic. “We were really given tremendous marks for having made the decision — it was a decision I made — to close down the border so that people from China, where we take in thousands and thousands of people a day, they stopped coming in, very early, weeks ahead of where they normally would’ve been stopped.” 

  Trump, has previously said he believes … without proof … that the death rate is not the reported 3.4 percent but actually about one percent. He has said a “hunch” tells him the higher number is wrong. “Everybody has to be calm. It’s all going to work out,” Trump said last night on Fox, sounding defensive at times, “We hope it doesn’t last too long.”

The Sick Market: Stock futures this morning indicate that the markets are poised to take another tumble as the coronavirus slows the world economy. It looks like the Dow will open down 700 points after dropping nearly 1,000 points yesterday.

 Then There Were Three: Crushed by her poor showing in the Super Tuesday primaries, former Democratic frontrunner Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race.

  Warren had run a serious issue-oriented progressive campaign laced with promises to women and girls that a woman could occupy the White House. Becoming a little emotional outside her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Warren said, “One of the hardest parts of this is all those pinky promises. All those little girls are going to have to wait for a woman.”

The Executioner’s Song: Alabama last night executed a 43-year-old man convicted of murder in the 2004 deaths of four Alabama police officers. Nathaniel Woods was pronounced dead at 9:01 pm after last-minute appeals failed.

  The cops were serving a warrant on a drug house when Woods’s friend Kerry Spencer opened fire with a high-powered rifle.  Woods never fired a shot, but was convicted of murder as an accomplice. It’s a principle in the law known as “felony murder.” If someone gets killed while you are committing a felony, you can be charged with murder even if you didn’t pull the trigger.

  In denying a request for clemency, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said, “This is not a decision that I take lightly, but I firmly believe in the rule of law and that justice must be served.”

  Spencer is still on death row awaiting an execution date.

The Obit Page: Lynn Evans Mand, the lead singer for the vocal harmony group the Chordettes, who made the evergreen hits  “Mr. Sandman” and “Lollipop,” has died at age 95.

The Bulletin Board: Fallen movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has finally taken up residence at New York’s Riker’s Island jail after having a heart stent implanted. — Jamie Dimon, the longtime chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, had emergency heart surgery yesterday, proving that the 63-year-old financial executive actually has a heart. — After sifting through 28,000 submissions, judges have decided to name the new Mars Rover “Perseverance.”

An Affair to Remember: Former President Bill Clinton says in a documentary to run on Hulu that he had an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky to manage his stress.

  “You feel like you’re staggering around, you’ve been in a 15 round prize fight that was extended to 30 rounds and here’s something that will take your mind off it for a while, that’s what happens,” Clinton said, offering what he said was an explanation, not an excuse.

  Clinton said he feels “terrible” that Lewinsky’s life has been defined by the affair. “Things I did to manage my anxieties for years,” he said. “I’m a different, totally different person than I was, a lot of that stuff 20 years ago.” 

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