Europe has become the new epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic as cases in China slow and the deadly coronavirus runs through Italy and nearby countries, World Health Organization officials said Friday. CNBC reports: "More cases are now being reported [in Europe] every day than were reported in China at the height of its epidemic," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference at the organization's Geneva headquarters. WHO officials declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on Wednesday as the virus spreads rapidly across the world from Asia to Europe, the Middle East and now parts of the United States. "When the virus is out there, the population has no immunity and no therapy exists, then 60% to 70% of the population will be infected," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday, according to Reuters. The country has a population of more than 82 million. Italy currently has the most cases outside of China with at least 15,113 infections, followed by Spain at 4,334, Germany at 3,156 and France at 2,882, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Other countries in Europe are seeing cases soar. Switzerland currently has 1,125 cases, followed by Sweden at 809, the Netherlands at 804 and Denmark at 788. The United States had at least 1,701 cases as of Friday morning, according to Hopkins.

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Microsoft announced on Friday that Bill Gates is leaving the board. CNBC reports: "I have made the decision to step down from both of the public boards on which I serve -- Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway -- to dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and my increasing engagement in tackling climate change," Gates said on LinkedIn. "The leadership at the Berkshire companies and Microsoft has never been stronger, so the time is right to take this step." "With respect to Microsoft, stepping down from the board in no way means stepping away from the company," Gates said. "Microsoft will always be an important part of my life's work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and the technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company's ambitious goals. I feel more optimistic than ever about the progress the company is making and how it can continue to benefit the world." "It's been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to solve society's most pressing challenges. And Microsoft and the world are better for it. The board has benefited from Bill's leadership and vision. And Microsoft will continue to benefit from Bill's ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward. I am grateful for Bill's friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him to realize our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." Gates is also stepping down from his position on the board of Berkshire Hathaway.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN Business: The U.S. Department of Defense on Thursday said it wishes to re-evaluate its decision to award the Pentagon's multibillion-dollar cloud contract with Microsoft, signaling a potential victory for Amazon in its protest of the award. The department "wishes to reconsider its award decision in response to the other technical challenges presented by AWS," it said in a court filing, referring to Amazon Web Services. The agency said it does not anticipate needing to discuss the matter with either AWS or Microsoft. The contract -- called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI -- involves providing cloud storage of sensitive military data and technology, such as artificial intelligence, to the Department of Defense, and could result in revenue of up to $10 billion over 10 years. Amazon Web Services lost the contract to Microsoft's Azure cloud business in October, a decision that surprised many industry experts given Amazon's leadership in the industry. Amazon filed a suit with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims contesting the decision, arguing that it was politically motivated by President Donald Trump's dislike of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, which Bezos owns. "We look forward to complete, fair, and effective corrective action that fully insulates the re-evaluation from political influence and corrects the many issues affecting the initial flawed award," Amazon Web Services said in a statement. Microsoft, meanwhile, said it supports the "decision to reconsider a small number of factors as it is likely the fastest way to resolve all issues and quickly provide the needed modern technology to people across our armed forces."

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency over the fast-spreading coronavirus. In addition to providing about $50 billion in federal aid to fight the disease and temporarily suspending interest on student loans, Trump said Google is "helping to develop" a website that will help users determine if testing is needed and where the nearest testing location is. Trump said the search engine giant has 1,700 engineers at work to build the website. "Users will be directed to fill out a questionnaire, including detailing any symptoms, and if deemed necessary they will be directed to a nearby drive-thru test site that the U.S. government is preparing to roll out across the country," reports Business Insider. It's not yet clear when this website will launch, but Trump said Google has already "made tremendous progress."

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President Trump declared a national emergency on Friday afternoon, a move that would give him authority to use $40 billion allocated by Congress for disaster relief to address the coronavirus crisis. From a report: Cases in the U.S. have climbed past 1,700, even with sporadic and spare testing, and the death toll has risen to 41. Mr. Trump, according to a senior administration official, is expected to invoke the Stafford Act, a law that empowers the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster response and aid state and local governments. The president had indicated in recent days that he had been briefed on the law and could use it to address the pandemic, and Democratic lawmakers like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, have been pressing him to invoke it. "We have very strong emergency powers under the Stafford Act," Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. "I have it memorized, practically, as to the powers in that act. And if I need to do something, I'll do it. I have the right to do a lot of things that people don't even know about." Mr. Trump further said that he is waiving off the interest on student loan debt until further notice.

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The Russian trolls are back -- and once again trying to poison the political atmosphere in the United States ahead of this year's elections. But this time they are better disguised and more targeted, harder to identify and track. And they have found an unlikely home, far from Russia itself. From a report: In 2016, much of the trolling aimed at the US election operated from an office block in St. Petersburg, Russia. A months-long CNN investigation has discovered that, in this election cycle, at least part of the campaign has been outsourced -- to trolls in the west African nations of Ghana and Nigeria. They have focused almost exclusively on racial issues in the US, promoting black empowerment and often displaying anger towards white Americans. The goal, according to experts who follow Russian disinformation campaigns, is to inflame divisions among Americans and provoke social unrest. The language and images used in the posts -- on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram -- are sometimes graphic. One of the Ghanaian trolls -- @africamustwake -- linked to a story from a left-wing conspiracy website and commented on Facebook: "America's descent into a fascist police state continues."

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Proton Technologies, the company behind encrypted email provider ProtonMail, has announced plans to circumvent censorship by routing connections to its servers through third-party infrastructure, which may include Google -- a company that ProtonMail has long been critical of over its privacy practices. From a report: Proton, which was founded out of Switzerland in 2013 by academic researchers working on particle physics projects at CERN, promises ProtonMail users full privacy via client-side encryption, meaning that nobody can intercept and read their emails -- it has frequently positioned itself as the antithesis of Gmail, which serves as a vital cog in Google's advertising wheel. ProtonMail, on the other hand, has emerged as a prominent privacy-focused alternative, used by companies and individuals -- including White House staffers and activists -- wishing to sidestep snoopers. Thus, ProtonMail has faced its fair share of censorship, with the likes of Turkey, Belarus, and Russia all blocking the service in recent times. This is something that Proton is now pushing harder to counter with its new backup solution. The new tool, which will be deployed over the next few weeks in the ProtonMail desktop and mobile apps, is designed to sidestep any blocks imposed by network administrators, internet service providers (ISPs), or governments.

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We should focus our attention on critical businesses. The supply chain for food, electric, communication (phone, internet). And a massive moon mission type program to create hospital beds and train new people to treat the sick. We're going to wish we had very soon.

The preparation for Covid19 is something like the prep for a big hurricane. Everything is fine. But the supermarket shelves are empty. People are boarding up the windows. You wonder if you've done enough to prepare. What it will be like to die like this.

People who focus on Trump waste focus. He's even more dangerous to himself than he is to us. He's the kind of person that the virus gets first. His age and physical condition make him vulnerable, he isn't protecting himself.

I've started a page of notes for Woodstock in the here and now.

Andrew Sullivan, as usual, nails it.

The Brno University Hospital in the city of Brno, Czech Republic, has been hit by a cyber-attack right in the middle of a COVID-19 outbreak that is picking up steam in the small central European country. From a report: Hospital officials have not revealed the nature of the security breach; however, the incident was deemed severe enough to postpone urgent surgical interventions, and re-route new acute patients to nearby St. Anne's University Hospital, local media reported. The hospital was forced to shut down its entire IT network during the incident, and two other of the hospital's branches, the Children's Hospital and the Maternity Hospital, were also impacted. The Czech National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) tweeted today that "the incident was resolved on the spot," together with the hospital's IT staff and members of Czech police (NCOZ). The incident was considered a severe one and treated with the utmost urgency because the Brno University Hospital is one of the Czech Republic's biggest COVID-19 testing laboratories.

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Italians in lockdown all over Italy are keeping each other company by singing, dancing and playing music from the balconies. A thread to celebrate the resilience of ordinary people.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said Friday that major internet providers -- including Comcast, AT&T and Verizon Communications -- have agreed to not terminate service for the next 60 days if they are unable to pay their bills due to the disruptions caused by the coronavirus. From a report: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said after calls with companies and associations the firms have also agreed to waive any late fees that any residential or small business customers incur because of their economic circumstances related to the coronavirus pandemic and open Wi-Fi hotspots to any American who needs them.

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