Governments grapple with virus border closures, lockdowns

BERLIN (AP) — Governments around the globe grappled Wednesday with how to implement border closures, travel restrictions and lockdowns that have unleashed transportation chaos and imperiled economies, but which authorities say are needed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

European Union leaders agreed to shut down the bloc's external borders for 30 days, while the U.S. and Canada were reportedly working out the details of a mutual ban on nonessential travel between the two countries.

In Southeast Asia, the causeway between Malaysia and the financial hub of Singapore was eerily quiet after Malaysia shut its borders, while the Philippines backed down on an order giving foreigners 72 hours to leave from a large part of its main island.

The administration of President Donald Trump was considering a plan to immediately return to Mexico all people who cross America's southern border illegally, according to two administration officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the plan hasn’t been finalized.

The coronavirus has now spread to every state in the U.S., with West Virginia becoming the last to report an infection. Hawaii's governor encouraged travelers to postpone their island vacations for at least the next 30 days, while the governor of Nevada — home to Las Vegas — ordered a monthlong closure of the state's casinos.

Increasingly worried about the economic fallout of the global shutdown, the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands announced rescue packages totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, while longtime International Monetary Fund critic Venezuela asked the institution for a $5 billion loan. Major Asian stock markets were higher Wednesday on Trump's promise of aid to get the U.S. economy through the outbreak.

In Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, the European...