Top Eight

Your Wednesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top eight CNS stories for today including U.S. financial markets again closed on a sour note; House Democrats rolled out an estimated $770 billion plan to rebuild U.S. infrastructure in response to the coronavirus pandemic; The death toll in Europe from the virus surged past 30,000 people, and more.

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National

1.) Investors hoping to put the horrid first quarter of 2020 behind them face the potential of an even worse second quarter, as markets closed Wednesday on a sour note.

President Donald Trump listens during a briefing about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Tuesday, March 31, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

2.) House Democrats on Wednesday rolled out an estimated $770 billion plan to rebuild U.S. infrastructure, launching into phase four of the congressional response to the coronavirus pandemic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., left, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Md., right, holds up the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act after Pelosi signed it on Capitol Hill, Friday, March 27, 2020, in Washington. The $2.2 trillion package will head to head to President Donald Trump for his signature. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

3.) Distributed at the height of a national anthrax scare, a supply of 1,200 N95 respirator masks have been unearthed from courthouse supply closets across the state of Florida and sent to the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A medical worker wearing a single protective glove and a face mask walks past a line of workers and visitors waiting to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, at the main entrance to the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Monday, March 23, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

International

4.) The death toll in Europe from the coronavirus pandemic surged past 30,000 people on Wednesday as Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands each reported hundreds of new deaths.

Corporal Mathias Jahn, left, member of the German armed forces Bundeswehr, stands in front of a mobile coronavirus test station and demonstrates his work in a test run after a press conference at a drive-through (drive-in) COVID-19 testing center in Gera, Germany, Wednesday, April 1, 2020. The appointment-only drive-through testing center began twelfe days ago. Medical staff reach into a car to take a nasopharyngeal swab from a patient. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

5.) The coronavirus pandemic is not just infecting hundreds of thousands of Europeans – it’s also attacking the pulmonary system of Europe’s politics and economies and badly sickening the European Union, a massive but fragile experiment.

A woman walks over a bridge with the European Central Bank in background in Frankfurt, Germany, as the sun rises Monday, March 30, 2020. Due to the coronavirus the economy expects heavy losses. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Regional

6.) As images spread of New York hospitals moving body bags to morgues with forklifts — emblematic of a statewide death toll that doubled in three days — Governor Andrew Cuomo had plenty of empathy but few assurances for the public in his daily press briefing Wednesday.

A body wrapped in plastic is prepared to be loaded onto a refrigerated container truck used as a temporary morgue by medical workers due to COVID-19 concerns, Tuesday, March 31, 2020, at Brooklyn Hospital Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

7.) After weeks of resistance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order Wednesday for the nation’s third most populous state as coronavirus cases neared 7,000.

FILE- In this March 23, 2020 file photo, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks during a press conference at a coronavirus mobile testing site in The Villages, Fla. The Villages, a retirement community, is one of the largest concentration of seniors in the U.S. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been walking a tightrope for weeks during the coronavirus crisis, trying to protect both Floridians vulnerable to the virus and the cratering economy in a state of 21 million people.(AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

8.) The secret society of toilet paper hoarders has retreated to their dank lavatories, leaving rolls a plenty at Texas grocery stores. And business is booming for the Texas chain H-E-B thanks to a pandemic plan 15 years in the making.

An H-E-B grocery store is seen in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (CNS Photo/Cameron Langford)

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