It took a moment of carelessness for plague to strike the French port city of Marseilles in 1720, despite an edifice of strict health measures. A boat carrying silks from the Ottoman Empire was allowed to skip the usual 40 days’ quarantine to unload its cargo, unleashing an epidemic that wiped out almost half the city’s population and which didn’t ...

Small Indian companies getting decimated by the world’s harshest coronavirus lockdown finally see a ray of hope. Details are still sketchy, but the Indian government plans to backstop banks if they increase overdraft limits by 20%, providing $39 billion of new working capital to smaller enterprises, Bloomberg News has reported. A state-sponsored fund will absorb losses. Seeing how the US ...

If one thing has seemed to unite Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, it’s spring cleaning. With stay-at-home orders in effect, a long-delayed clearing-out of basements, closets, back bedrooms and desk drawers has become a popular way to pass the time. One result is that America’s thrift stores are informally reporting unprecedented volumes of donations. And that’s creating a problem that ...