Across the country and the globe, hospitality and tourism industries continue to fall victim to the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Las Vegas has been one of the hardest hit cities after Nevada ordered all hotels, casinos, bars and restaurants closed and canceled all conventions, conferences and sporting events in an effort stop the spread of the virus. McCarran International Airport also closed the majority of its gates as traffic declined.

Read more at CNBC.

Looking for some cool science projects to do with the kids? Be prepared to get your hands dirty with these fun and easy science experiments.

Read more at Flipboard.

With the coronavirus pandemic quickly spreading, U.S. health officials have changed their advice on face masks and now recommend people wear cloth masks in public areas where social distancing can be difficult, such as grocery stores.

But can these masks be effective?

President Donald Trump, in announcing the change in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on April 3, stressed that the recommendation was voluntary and said he probably wouldn’t follow it. Governors and mayors, however, have started encouraging the precautions to reduce the spread of the virus by people who might not know they are infected.

Read more at The Conversation.

The Trump administration wants to use Americans' smartphone location data to help track and combat the spread of coronavirus. Now, a pair of US data companies are making a public pitch to show just how that kind of technology might work.
X-Mode and Tectonix focused on a high-profile case: tracking location data from the phones of people who visited the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in March -- among them spring breakers who made national news two weeks ago when they ignored warnings to practice social distancing despite the worsening coronavirus pandemic.

Read more at CNN.

One observation that didn’t make it into my Friday story on the bad-and-getting-worse employment picture is that job losses due to the coronavirus crisis are going to hit industries you don’t expect. For example, health care: You might think that’s a sector that won’t be hit by this crisis, as the coronavirus is generating all sorts of demand for health-care services, but like virtually every sector, it’s going to have parts where workers are laid off even while other parts desperately try to get as much staffing as they can.

You saw this even in the extremely partial information in Friday’s jobs report, which reflected the employment situation as of the week ending Saturday, March 14, well before the worst of the closures had hit. That report showed 43,000 fewer health-care jobs in mid-March than in mid-February. Hospital employment was almost precisely flat between the two months, but dental offices reported 17,000 fewer workers and doctors’ offices had 12,000 fewer. Since about three times as many Americans work in doctors’ offices as in dentists’ offices, that’s an especially hard hit to dental employment, which makes sense: Most dental services are not emergencies, and dental work creates significant risk of exposure to coronavirus, so many dental offices have closed, including mine, which canceled my semi-annual appointment that had been scheduled for March 18.

Read more at NY Mag.

One day after the launch of a $350B loan program designed to rescue millions of small businesses, technical glitches continue to cripple the process.

Read more at NBC.

No cleaning job is ever too dangerous or dirty for Texas-based hazardous-cleanup company CG Environmental (aka the “Cleaning Guys”).

Since 1992, the company has cleaned up everything from crime scenes to chemicals spills and radioactive waste to dirty flood water caused by hurricanes.

Read more at CNBC.

According to the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, which measures the expected price fluctuations in S&P 500 options contracts over the next 30 days, things have never been this wild for equities. This past Wednesday, March 18 saw the VIX close at its highest level in history, handily surpassing the previous high set during the financial crisis.

Also as of this past Wednesday, we witnessed the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI) close higher or lower by more than 1,000 points for eight consecutive sessions. Broadening a bit, over an 18-session stretch, the Dow has logged 9 out of its 11 largest single-day point losses, as well as 5 of its 6 largest single-session point gains. If you're a short-term trader, it's been a nauseating nightmare.

Read more at The Motley Fool.

COVID-19, the illness caused by a new kind of coronavirus, has dramatically altered life as we know it in the United States. Schools have closed, businesses have shut down, people have been forced into isolation and left with uncertainty.

What started as a small outbreak in Wuhan, China, months ago has now spanned the globe. And still, medical and public health officials in scores of countries are racing to find answers.

Read more at PBS News.

The Agriculture Department said Wednesday that it would appeal a judge’s ruling that it would be “arbitrary and capricious” to move forward during a global health crisis with food stamp changes that could force hundreds of thousands from the program.

Federal Judge Beryl Howell, in a ruling late last week, stopped a set of changes that would have taken effect on April 1. On Wednesday, an Agriculture Department spokesperson responded to an Associated Press query with a terse email saying only that “USDA disagrees with the court’s reasoning and will appeal its decision.”

Read more at PBS News.