Italy's premier says all stores except pharmacies and grocery stores are being closed nationwide in response to the country's coronavirus outbreak. Premier Giuseppe Conte thanked the public for co-operating with the already unprecedented travel and social restrictions that took effect Tuesday. But he said Wednesday night on Facebook Live that Italy must `` go another step'' by closing all shops and businesses except for food stores, pharmacies and other shops selling ''essential'' items. The tighter restrictions on daily life are the government's latest effort to respond to the fast moving cri

The World Health Organization says COVID-19 is officially a pandemic.WHO director general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement at a news conference in Geneva, but is urging calm, saying with prevention, preparedness and political leadership it can be managed.He says calling the situation a pandemic doesn't change the organization's assessment of the threat from the illness or what countries should do to prepare and combat it.

The Grand Princess cruise ship with 21 cases of novel coronavirus has arrived at a port in Oakland near San Francisco. There are about 35 hundred people on board including 237 Canadians. Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says it is expected they will be taken soon to a federally chartered plane and flown home to Ontario. They will be in quarantine for two weeks.

Experts say Germany's low death rate from the new coronavirus is partly due to early testing that gave more time to contain the outbreak. The country has confirmed more than 1,100 cases but, so far, just two deaths. Other countries with a similar number of confirmed infections have dozens of deaths. Christian Drosten, the director of the Institute for Virology at Berlin's Charite hospital, said Germany's dense network of independent labs received both the technical information needed to conduct tests and the approval to bill for them in January. Case numbers in Germany were still in the singl

Elizabeth Warren says it has been an honour of a lifetime to run to be the Democratic candidate in the 2020 U-S presidential election, but she is ending her campaign. Her voice cracking, the Massachusetts senator says she will likely endorse one of the two major candidates left in the race, Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders, but after she takes some time to herself. While she says she has no regrets, Warren became emotional when she spoke about meeting little girls who will have to wait at least another four years to see a woman in the White House.

There are 235 Canadians on the passenger manifest for a cruise ship that is being held off the coast of California for coronavirus testing. Global Affairs Canada says there are no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus on the ship. But the federal department says previous passengers of the Grand Princess cruise ship have tested positive for COVID-19, which is the respiratory disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus that first appeared in China last year. The federal department says it is in contact with the cruise line and local authorities and is monitoring developments closely. Any Can

Canadian military personnel in Iraq are on high alert following reports the novel coronavirus is spreading within the country. Chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance says troops have been ordered to protect themselves, including through proper hygiene and keeping their distance from Iraqi forces who may be infected with the virus, which can cause a respiratory illness known as COVID-19. Two people are believed to have died from the disease in Iraq, one in Baghdad and the other in the northern Kurdistan region where Canadian special forces have been operating for several years. The rep

Canadian country music star Brett Kissel says a tornado narrowly missed his condo in Nashville early this morning. He says much of the surrounding area in his neighbourhood is in ruins. Kissel, who is from Flat Lake, Alberta, says the twister got so close to his building that cars in its parking lot had smashed windows. Tornadoes killed at least 22 people across Tennessee and shredded at least 140 buildings.

The death toll from the coronavirus in the U.S. has climbed to nine, with tensions rising over how to contain the outbreak. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are expressing doubts about the government's ability to ramp up testing fast enough to deal with the crisis. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has announced the biggest interest-rate cut in over a decade to try to fend off damage to the economy. And health officials are trying to ease shortages of face masks by giving the OK to medical workers to use industrial-grade ones.