Going to the footy is off the agenda, pub crawls are on hold and your social calendar is swirling through the U-bend. But there are plenty of ways to kick loneliness to the curb during these wild times of social distancing.

Sydney Town Hall — picture by Gus Leonisky

From Casey Chalk:

Airplanes are grounded. Roads, deserted. The skies are clear and fish swim once again in Venice’s canals. Covid-19 has achieved in three short months what Greta Thunberg and her ilk could only dream of.

   The name Pluto, the god of the underworld, was proposed for a new planet, by Venetia Burney, 

Scott Morrison threatens funding for independent and Catholic schools over closures amid coronavirus crisis

Coalition urged to explain the trigger point for school closures and to prepare to support essential workers

Coronavirus fears lead to Eurovision cancellation as Boris Johnson closes schools to try and contain pandemic, live updates...

By Peter Marsh

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says all schools will close from Friday and Eurovision has been cancelled as Europe ramps up measures to deal with COVID-19.

Follow all the latest updates as they happen in our live blog.

 

More:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-19/coronavirus-australia-live-update...

Tim Blair is a positive guy… Super-positive. A + battery terminal… In the face of danger, Tim stands like a beacon on an English coast, resisting wave after wave of stormy shit news, on Monday 16th of March…

 

Henri Laurens was the least-known best sculptor in the world in his time and probably still is, though he has been "dead for a while” (1954). He has been forgotten, languishing in the massive shadows of Moore and Rodin. 

 

 

 

Henri Laurens was known for his early cubist works and his later rounded shapes, particularly of the female figure. For the general public, Henri Laurens, who? Yet, his work was a major opus that influenced a lot of other artists and thinkers…

 

 

 

 

 

   The dramatic spread of coronavirus around the world has travellers cancelling flights, airlines grounding planes and cutting routes, but is this just panic?

Not according to Nobel Prize winner Professor Peter Doherty, whose research is mainly in the area of defence against viruses.

A number of states have moved to cancel some Anzac Day services and ban the public from attending others in an attempt to thwart the spread of coronavirus.

Silicon Valley saved by the coronavirus?

US President Donald Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus, the White House physician has said.