We're tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know. Hospitals in Mexico City are nearing saturation point after they received 100 more Covid-19 patients requiring intubation in just two days, newspaper El Norte reported, citing Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. Of the city’s 16 municipalities, the most affected is Iztapalapa. The General Hospital there is at capacity and is turning away patients, Sheinbaum said....

Credit rating companies are distorting capital markets by assigning the same debt ranking to countries from Italy to Thailand and Kazakhstan, according to BlackRock Inc., the world's biggest money manager. While 23 countries share the BBB+ to BBB- levels assessed by Standard & Poor's, the lowest investment grades, up from 15 in 2008 at the beginning of the financial crisis, their debt to gross domestic product ratios range from 12 percent for Kazakhstan to 44 percent for Thailand and 126...

CARACAS, Venezuela — Since becoming Venezuela’s president 18 months ago, Nicolás Maduro has contended with chronic shortages of everything from toothpaste to medicine, the world’s fastest inflation and sinking foreign reserves. His predicament is about to get worse. Prices for Venezuela’s oil, which accounts for 95 percent of the nation’s exports, are tumbling to a four-year low and threatening to choke off the export dollars the country needs to pay its debts. “It’s a direct hit on tax...

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela had its credit rating cut by Moody’s Investors Service to the world’s worst among countries not in default, as falling oil prices strain a government already confronting food shortages and 64 percent inflation. Moody’s said Tuesday it has cut Venezuela’s rating two levels to Caa3, putting it on par with Ukraine, racked by conflict with Russia-aligned rebels, and Jamaica, which has defaulted twice since 2010. Falling oil prices mean the Venezuelan government must...

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela had its credit rating cut by Moody’s Investors Service to the world’s worst among countries not in default, as falling oil prices strain a government already confronting food shortages and 64 percent inflation. Moody’s said Tuesday it has cut Venezuela’s rating two levels to Caa3, putting it on par with Ukraine, racked by conflict with Russia-aligned rebels, and Jamaica, which has defaulted twice since 2010. Falling oil prices mean the Venezuelan government must...