We’ll say it again: It’s been a week! Let’s get you caught up.
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Headlines
Stories you might have missed from WIRED this week- As the novel coronavirus pushes demand for groceries and medical equipment, truck drivers are looking for guarantees that they’ll have places to buy a cup of coffee—and sleep.
- Former Uber and Google self-driving program head Anthony Levandowski pleads guilty to trade secret theft , and may face prison time.
- Covid-19 is bad news for the automotive industry, and even worse news for the electric vehicle proponents .
- The Navy will deploy two hospital ships to help with the coronavirus response, but a surgeon who served on one of them doesn’t think it’s a great place to treat infectious disease patients.
- Tesla’s Fremont factory fell into this week’s “shelter in place” order—and it turns out not to be as “essential” as CEO Elon Musk believed.
- As commercial airlines see ticket sales plummet, some are using their passenger jets to fly cargo .
- Here’s how Amazon’s sprawling shipping empire has reacted to the pandemic.
- For the math fans in the back: How fast does a virus spread ?
Heroes of the Week
Even amid city shutdowns and shelter-in-place orders, we’re hearing about plenty of transportation folk—bus drivers, truckers, cleaning crews, and airport staff—out there getting the people who still need to move from A to B. Hey! We appreciate you!
Stat of the Week: $16 billion
The emergency funding needed to keep American transit operating, according to a request to Congress from the American Public Transit Association. President and CEO Paul Skoutelas told congressional leaders in a letter that the nation’s transit systems would lose 75 percent of its fares and sales tax revenues between March and September, and that they would spend some $2 billion on extra cleanings for trains, buses, and stations.Required Reading
News from elsewhere on the internet