What you need to know today about the virus outbreak

The world’s economic pain was on full display Thursday with new bleak evidence from Europe and the United States of the mounting devastation wrought on jobs and economies by coronavirus lockdown measures.

The European economy shrank a record 3.8% in the first quarter as lockdowns turned cities into ghost towns and plunged nations into recession. The drop was the biggest since eurozone statistics began in 1995 and compares with a 4.8% contraction in the United States.

Here are some of AP’s top stories Thursday on the world’s coronavirus pandemic. Follow APNews.com/VirusOutbreak for updates through the day and APNews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak for stories explaining some of its complexities.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY:

— More than 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the U.S. economy slid further into a crisis that is becoming the most devastating since the 1930s.

— Americans are grappling with an essential question as they try to get the information they need to stay safe during the coronavirus crisis: Whom do you trust?

— Brazil’s virtually uncontrolled surge of COVID-19 cases is spawning fear that construction workers, truck drivers and tourists from Latin America’s biggest nation will spread the disease to neighboring countries that are doing a better job of controlling the coronavirus.

— The coronavirus scare has done something to time. The days, weeks and now the months have blurred and stretched as talk of reopening the world has taken over for millions waiting and wondering at home. Like so many cataclysms before this one, memories are settling in of the old times, for better or worse.

— Under Japan’s coronavirus state of emergency, people have been asked to stay home. Many are not. Some still have to...