USA - At least 25 people are dead after tornadoes swept through Middle Tennessee on the morning of March 3. Putnam County officials said at least 18 people were killed, including some children, and 88 others were hurt. Two people were killed in Davidson County, and at least 156 people have been treated for injuries. One person was killed in Benton County with at least 25 homes damaged. Three people were killed in Wilson County, with one of the victims suffering a medical emergency during the tornado. The NWS said one EF-4 tornado swept through Davidson, Wilson and Smith counties. It was on the ground for 60.13 miles. There were at least four tornadoes in Middle Tennessee total, the NWS said.

AFRICA - Weeks before the coronavirus spread through much of the world, parts of Africa were already threatened by another kind of plague, the biggest locust outbreak some countries had seen in 70 years. Now the second wave of the voracious insects, some 20 times the size of the first, is arriving. Billions of the young desert locusts are winging in from breeding grounds in Somalia in search of fresh vegetation springing up with seasonal rains. Millions of already vulnerable people are at risk.

INDONESIA - Krakatoa has erupted, sending a plume of ash 47,000ft into the air, while elsewhere in the world Iceland is seeing a dramatic increase in volcanic activity. Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation (PVMB) recorded two eruptions at the site, once at 9.58pm and another at 10.35pm on Friday, April 10, West Indonesia Time. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, many residents in the region had stopped activity, which meant the volcano’s rumble was heard very clearly in West Java and Indonesia's capital of Jakarta.

TAIWAN - The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held military drills featuring warplanes near Taiwan on Friday as part of “military struggle preparations against the island,” Chinese state media reported on Friday. Global Times, a Communist Party propaganda newspaper, said multiple PLA warplanes – including H-6 bombers, KJ-500 early warning aircraft, and J-11 fighter jets – conducted a far-sea, long-range drill above southwestern waters near the island of Taiwan. The PLA warplanes were seen flying over waters southwest of Taiwan and then entering the skies over the Bashi Channel – located between Taiwan and the Philippines – before returning to base via the same route, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) confirmed on Friday. Taiwan’s armed forces are closely monitoring the country’s surrounding waters and airspace, Taiwanese military spokesman Shih Shun-wen said.

JAPAN - Japan has allocated $2.2 billion (US) of its $993 billion emergency stimulus package to help manufacturers relocate production out of China amid the COVID-19 pandemic which began in the communist nation. According to SCMP, $2 billion (US) will be set aside for companies shifting production back to Japan, while roughly $223.5 million will be spent on helping companies move production to other countries, according to SCMP. Under normal circumstances, China is Japan's largest trading partner - however imports from China plummeted nearly 50% in February as the coronavirus pandemic resulted in closed factories and unfilled orders. Meanwhile, a planned visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Japan early this month - the first such trip in a decade - was postponed with no date rescheduled.

USA - Several meat processing plants around the US are sitting idle this week because workers have been infected with the coronavirus. Tyson Foods, one of the country’s biggest meat processors, says it suspended operations at its pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, after more than two dozen workers got sick with COVID-19. National Beef Packing stopped slaughtering cattle at another Iowa plant, and JBS USA shut down work at a beef plant in Pennsylvania.

USA - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H Powell said Thursday the US economy is in an emergency and is deteriorating “with alarming speed.” His remarks came shortly after the central bank unveiled over $2 trillion in new loans to keep the economy afloat as much of the nation goes into a lockdown to fight the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

UK - The government will not be lifting the coronavirus lockdown imminently - meaning it will stretch beyond the initial three week period, it has been confirmed. This evening Dominic Raab - who is deputising for Boris Johnson while the PM is in intensive care - said the worst thing the country could do would be to “take its foot off the pedal”. He said it is too early to consider lifting the restrictions - which state Brits can only leave their homes for essential trips and exercise. When the lockdown was announced on March 23, Mr Johnson said the unprecedented measure would be reviewed after three weeks - meaning it could have been lifted at the start of next week. But the UK is not in a position where it is safe to change the rules, Mr Raab said. Nevertheless the government’s chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said there were encouraging signs that the lockdown was working.

USA - What are hungry Americans going to do when the food banks don’t have any more food for them? Over the past couple of weeks, we have witnessed the largest spike in unemployment in all of US history. Since most of those workers did not have any sort of a cushion to fall back on, a lot of them have been forced to seek out emergency assistance for themselves and their families almost immediately. Of course our national network of food banks was not built to handle this sort of a scenario, and as you will see below, many of them are already starting to run out of food. But if things are this bad at the very beginning of this new economic downturn, what are things going to look like a few months from now? It is imperative for people to understand that we are now in uncharted territory. At this point, even the head of the IMF is warning that this new economic crisis will be “way worse” that the last recession…

USA - US farmers have destroyed millions of pounds of perishable food like tomatoes, lettuce and green beans because growers lost a vast number of customers after the coronavirus pandemic struck. "It's a catastrophe, it really is," said Tony DiMare, a long-time tomato grower based in Palm Beach County, Florida. DiMare said he let 10 million pounds of tomatoes rot on the farm in a region south of Miami because no market existed for them. "It's been a disaster at every level - lost crops, lost sales, lost packing inventory," DiMare said.

USA - As we've seen already, animals seem to be pouring into the city streets as people retreat to their shelters amidst the COVID-19 lockdown. And while at first it was only deer, boars, horses, and sheep taking over the civilized world, now it seems like countless others have joined the cause all around the world. And this time, even dangerous predators like bears, mountain lions, and wild pumas are prowling in the streets.

ISRAEL - The Sanhedrin is anxiously awaiting a response from the Israeli government about whether it will be able to perform the Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount for the first time since the second temple in the first century AD.

Shimshon Elboim, head of the Temple Mount Organizations, submitted a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking for permission for the Aaronic priests to be allowed to perform the korban Pesach on its appointed site Wednesday evening, according to Breaking Israel News.

“The project is of the utmost importance for all of mankind,” spokesman for the Sanhedrin Rabbi Hillel Weiss told BIN, observing that the original Passover was designed to avert the final Egyptian plague or נֶגֶף (negef: disease).

ISRAEL - The Sanhedrin tasked Shimshon Elboim, head of the Temple Mount Organizations, with submitting a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu to perform the ritual korban Pesach (Passover sacrifice) in its proper place, the Temple Mount, and in its Biblically mandated time, Wednesday afternoon, the eve of the Passover feast. “God forbid we should allow the coronavirus to strike His children with rising up to bring about the solution given in the Torah for epidemics,” the letter read.

USA - Unemployment apocalypse, business collapse & dollar collapse. The US economy has been a debt driven economy for many years. At the moment we have a global economic collapse and the US economy has been hit very hard. This economic crisis is differentiating the real from the fake. Bubbles are popping up all over and this is leaving a very big hole in the economy.

USA - The new coronavirus pandemic has surpassed another startling threshold in the US. As of Monday, the US has officially seen more than 10,000 people die after testing positive for the new coronavirus. Nearly half of those deaths have happened in New York, with the state's total hitting 4,758 deaths on Monday. The US had already surpassed every other country's coronavirus case count, though a lack of testing makes it hard to certify counts in any country. As such, it's very likely there are many more people who have died after contracting the disease in the US and worldwide, but they can't be counted in the official death toll because they hadn't been tested. New York has been the hardest hit state when it comes to COVID-19 case counts, followed by New Jersey, Michigan, and then California.