WORLD

London, United Kingdom | AFP | The coronavirus pandemic poses a huge global challenge to auction houses large and small, but those that have embraced technology could prosper as nervous investors seek a safe haven, according to experts. Major London-based house Sotheby’s has closed its London, Hong Kong, Dubai, Geneva, Milan, …

Washington, United States | AFP |  Abortion rights advocates on Saturday called on the US Supreme Court to urgently intervene to force Texas to reinstate the right to abortion, which has been suspended in the state since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic. This is the first appeal related to …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis will break with centuries of tradition and livestream Easter Sunday mass to allow the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics celebrate their holiest holiday under a coronavirus lockdown. Fear and confusion in the face of a disease whose official death toll has soared past …

Washington, United States | AFP | As COVID-19 tests become more widely available across the US, scientists have warned about a growing concern: Many people with negative results might actually have the virus. That could have devastating implications as a global recession looms and governments wrangle with the question of when …

  Sydney, Australia | AFP | Cardinal George Pell has penned a letter in Australia’s national newspaper just days after walking free from prison in which he says the Catholic Church has “cut out a moral cancer” by facing down child sex abuse. The letter, published Saturday in The Weekend Australian, …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP |  Furloughed because of the coronavirus pandemic, airline and hotel employees in Sweden are retraining to work as hospital and nursing home assistants as the death toll nears 900 in the Scandinavian country. The initiative offers cabin crew — mostly from SAS Scandinavian airlines which said last …

Tomelloso, Spain | AFP |  After burying five elderly people in one morning, the local priest can finally remove his gloves, a job all too familiar in this central Spanish town blighted by death. These days, they no longer publish death notices in Tomelloso, a town of 36,000 located in the …

Miami, United States | AFP |  What could be worse than a pandemic overwhelming health care systems and causing global economic collapse? Florida knows the answer: a pandemic that rages into hurricane season, which is already on the horizon and causing the Sunshine State to dramatically update its storm preparations. “COVID …

New York, United States | AFP |  Clutching flowers, candles and photos, New York hospital workers paid tribute to colleagues who have died from the coronavirus since the beginning of the epidemic that has ravaged the city with a modest ceremony in the freezing cold Friday. Standing in front of the …

Washington, United States | AFP |  Barack Obama celebrated the kickoff of his “historic” White House challenge before thousands of ecstatic supporters. Hillary Clinton also marked her “milestone,” as the first woman nominee of a major US party, to thunderous applause. And what of Joe Biden? The resurgent Democrat has been denied …