Scientists say Louisiana may be experiencing the world’s fastest growth in new infections. Nearly half of the state’s 2,300 confirmed cases are in New Orleans, possibly because so many people visited last month for what now looks like an epidemiological nightmare: the annual Mardi Gras festival.

And in an anxious New York City, which has more than a quarter of the nation’s confirmed cases, our reporter went behind the scenes at a Brooklyn hospital where the emergency room could run out of space by next week.

“None of us knows where this is taking us,” Sylvie de Souza, the hospital’s chair of emergency medicine, said of her staff. “We don’t even know if we might get sick. But none of them so far has defaulted on their duty, their calling.”

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

Markets: Futures markets predicted that stocks in Europe and the U.S. would open lower today. Major benchmarks on both continents ended sharply higher on Thursday, after lawmakers in Washington struck a deal for a huge stimulus plan — and despite an alarming surge in U.S. unemployment claims.

Another angle: The White House is still mulling a potential $1 billion deal with two companies to produce as many as 80,000 ventilators, the critical devices that are desperately needed in hospitals across the nation.