AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

Global stocks fall on virus fears after Wall Street plunge

Global stock markets plunged further Friday on spreading virus fears, deepening a global rout after Wall Street endured its biggest one-day drop in nine years.

Germany's DAX skidded more than 5%, Tokyo and Shanghai closed 3.7% lower and New York markets looked set for more losses with the futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 down 2.3%.

Investors had been growing confident the disease that emerged in China in December might be under control. But outbreaks in Italy, South Korea, Japan and Iran have fueled fears the virus is turning into a global threat that might derail trade and industry.

Anxiety intensified Thursday when the United States reported its first virus case in someone who hadn't traveled abroad or been in contact with anyone who had.

Virus fears “have become full-blown across the globe as cases outside China climb,” Chang Wei Liang and Eugene Leow of DBS said in a report.

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Financial pain deepens as 56 countries exposed to virus

TOKYO (AP) — A deepening health crisis became an economic one too Friday, with the virus outbreak sapping financial markets, emptying shops and businesses, and putting major sites and events off limits.

As the list of countries hit by the illness grew to 56 with Belarus, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria and the Netherlands reporting their first cases, the threats to livelihoods were increasingly eyed as warily as the threats to lives.

“It’s not cholera or the black plague,” said Simone Venturini, the city councilor for economic development in Venice, Italy, where tourism already hurt by historic flooding last year has sunk with news of virus cases. “The damage that worries us even more is the damage to the economy.”

Attractions including Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan announced closures and events that expected tens of thousands, including a tour by the K-pop group BTS, were called off.

Investors watched warily as stocks fell across Asia and girded to see if Wall Street’s brutal run would continue, while businesses both small and large saw weakness and people felt it in their wallets.

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Coronavirus fear touches off a global run on face masks

Fear of the spreading coronavirus has led to a global run on sales of face masks despite medical experts' advice that most people who aren't sick don't need to wear them.

Many businesses are sold out, while others are limiting how many a customer can buy. Amazon is policing its site, trying to make sure sellers don't gouge panicked buyers.

In South Korea, hundreds lined up to buy masks from a discount store. Rumors that toilet paper and napkins could be used as masks have emptied store shelves in Asia of paper goods over the past few weeks.

Both ordinary people trying to protect themselves from the outbreak and medical professionals are facing shortages. well.

Some industry officials are attributing the shortages not just to high demand but to disruptions in supply: An outsize share of the world’s surgical masks are made in China — 50%, by its own estimate. But even factories there that have ramped up demand say they are hard pressed to meet local demand. The government has taken over manufacturers, and exports have plunged.

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10 Things to Know for Today

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. GLOBAL STOCKS TUMBLE ON VIRUS FEARS Outbreaks in Italy, South Korea and Iran fuel fears the coronavirus is turning into a worldwide threat that might derail trade and industry.

2. VIRUS EPIDEMIC HITS SCHOOLS, CONCERTS, PARKS Japan's schools prepare to close for almost a month and entertainers, topped by K-pop superstars BTS, cancel events as a virus epidemic extends its spread through Asia, Europe and into Africa.

3. VIRUS FEARS TOUCH OFF RUN ON FACE MASKS Sales are surging, despite the advice from medical experts that healthy people don’t need them, prompting Amazon to try to make sure sellers don't gouge panicked buyers.

4. WHERE SANDERS CAN’T AFFORD A BIG LOSS As Virginians head to the polls on Super Tuesday, the self-described democratic socialist is facing an electorate that has long favored moderates over populists.

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Turkey raises death toll to 33 troops in Syrian airstrike

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Friday raised the death toll from a Syrian government airstrike on its forces in northwestern Syria the previous night to 33 Turkish troops, the highest number of Turkish soldiers killed in a single day since Ankara first intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2016.

The deaths, which came in an attack late Thursday, were a serious escalation in the direct conflict between Turkish and Russia-backed Syrian forces that has been waged since early February. The earlier reported death toll was 29 troops.

The attack also sharply raises the risk of direct military confrontation between Turkey, a NATO member, and Russia. Ambassadors from NATO countries were holding emergency talks on Friday at the request of Turkey, a member of the alliance. The Turkish stock market fell 10% in the wake of the airstrike, while the Turkish lira slid against the dollar.

Rhami Dogan, the governor of Turkey's Hatay province bordering Syria's Idlib region, said 32 troops wounded in the attack were being treated in hospitals. Turkey has had 54 soldiers killed in Syria's northwestern Idlib province since the beginning of February, including the latest fatalities.

Turkey is a main backer of the Syrian opposition while Russia has been giving military support to the weeks-long Syrian government offensive in Idlib that has displaced about 950,000 people and left hundreds of civilians dead.

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Prayers at fire-bombed mosques as India's riot toll grows

NEW DELHI (AP) — Muslims in a northeastern neighborhood of India's capital returned for weekly prayers at fire-bombed mosques on Friday, two days after a 72-hour clash between Hindus and Muslims that left at least 40 dead and hundreds injured.

Five days after they started, authorities have not said what sparked the riots — the worst communal violence in New Delhi in decades — hospitals were still trying to identify all the dead, and the toll continued to rise.

"If they burn our mosques, we will rebuild them again and pray. It’s our religious right and nobody can stop us from practicing our religion,” said Mohammad Sulaiman, who was among about 180 men who prayed on the rooftop of a mosque that was set on fire in the unrest.

Tensions between Hindu hard-liners and Muslims protesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's Hindu-first policies had been building for months when the violence exploded Sunday night, on the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump's first state visit to India.

Kapil Mishra, a local leader of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party who lost his Delhi state assembly seat in recent elections, demanded at a rally Sunday that police shut down a Muslim-led protest in the city or else he and his followers would do it themselves.

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Sanders' appeal tested in moderate Virginia on Super Tuesday

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Rep. Elaine Luria is the kind of up-and-comer the Democratic Party would like to keep in Congress.

But the former Navy commander with a moderate bearing, who flipped a coastal Virginia House seat in 2018, said she's afraid that will be far more difficult if her party nominates Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president.

“When I talk to people across our district, they are very pragmatic, middle of the road,” said Luria, who has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. “They don’t want free everything for everyone, or policy positions that are unrealistic.”

Like Luria's district, which includes Virginia Beach, where Sanders is holding a rally Saturday night, her state presents a vital test for Sanders' ability to consolidate his position as the clear Democratic 2020 front-runner by winning in a swing state with moderate leanings.

She is among the dozen or so freshman members of Congress with national security backgrounds who persuaded voters to throw out an incumbent Republican, and Democrats are counting on them to help maintain control of the House in November.

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Afghans view US-Taliban deal with well-earned skepticism

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Many Afghans view Saturday's expected signing of a U.S.-Taliban peace deal with a heavy dose of well-earned skepticism. They've spent decades living in a country at war — some their whole lives — and wonder if they can ever reach a state of peace.

The deal is meant to set the stage for a U.S. troop withdrawal and to usher in talks among Afghans on both sides of the conflict about their country’s future. There's been bitter squabbling among political leaders, concern of a temporary truce being undermined, and the challenge of uniting a fractured country remains daunting.

Arash, an Afghan policeman in the capital of Kabul, was 7 years old when a U.S.-led military coalition ousted the Taliban government in 2001. The U.S. was retaliating for the Taliban harboring Osama Bin Laden while he masterminded the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"We've had no escape from war," said Arash, who only gave his first name because he had not received permission from his superiors to speak to reporters.

He said he and his colleagues want peace, but that political leaders “are only thirsty for power, not for peace.” He said the Taliban are fellow Afghans and that “we should have peace with them.”

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Parents of 'terrified' Africans stranded in China want help

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — She wakes every day long before dawn to chat with her three stranded daughters on the other side of the world in China's locked-down city of Wuhan, anxious to see they have started a new day virus-free.

“If I don’t get a reply it worries me, but if I get a reply from any of them I say, ‘’Thank you, Jesus,'" Margaret Ntale said.

Many countries evacuated citizens from Wuhan after the virus outbreak started there, but thousands of students from African countries have been left behind. Despite pleas with governments for evacuation, several African countries have said it's safer to stay in place.

More than 4,000 African students have been estimated to be in Wuhan, a result of China's push to expand its influence on the youthful African continent.

Bringing them home, governments say, is risky in sub-Saharan Africa, which on Friday confirmed its first case of the virus, in Nigeria's city of Lagos. Just two cases have been confirmed in North Africa, in Egypt and Algeria. Health systems can be weak, and quarantining dozens or hundreds of returning people is a major challenge.

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US schools start planning for possible spread of coronavirus

Schools across the United States are canceling trips abroad, preparing online lessons and even rethinking “perfect attendance” awards as they brace for the possibility that the new coronavirus could begin spreading in their communities.

Districts have been rushing to update emergency plans this week after federal officials warned that the virus, which started in China, is almost certain to begin spreading in the U.S. Many are preparing for possible school closures that could stretch weeks or longer, even as they work to tamp down panic among students, parents and teachers.

President Donald Trump has worked to minimize fears about the virus, but on Wednesday he also recommended that schools to start planning for arrival of the COVID-19 virus “just in case.”

“It’s the perfect time for businesses, health care systems, universities and schools to look at their pandemic preparedness plans, dust them off, and make sure that they’re ready,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House news conference.

School letters sent home from Florida to California this week sought to assure parents that, in most communities, the risk of exposure to the virus is still very low. Most suggested the same precautions used to combat the flu: Wash hands frequently, cover sneezes and coughs, and stay home if fever or other symptoms arise.