Latest on the coronavirus: US death toll overtakes Italy's as Midwest braces

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus eclipsed Italy's for the highest in the world, surpassing 20,000, as Chicago and other cities across the Midwest braced for a potential surge in victims and moved to snuff out smoldering hot spots of contagion before they erupt.

With the New York area still deep in crisis, fear mounted over the spread of the scourge into the nation's heartland.

Twenty-four residents of an Indiana nursing home hit by COVID-19 have died, while a nursing home in Iowa saw 14 deaths. Chicago's Cook County has set up a temporary morgue that can take more than 2,000 bodies. And Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been going around telling groups of people to "break it up."

In Europe, countries used roadblocks, drones, helicopters, mounted patrols and the threat of fines to keep people from traveling over Easter weekend. With infections and deaths slowing in Italy, Spain and other places on the Continent, governments took tentative steps toward loosening the weeks-long shutdowns.

Glorious weather across Europe posed an extra test of people's discipline.

Deaths and infections

• The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide neared 1.8 million on April 12 as the pandemic swept across the globe.
• Johns Hopkins University's website showed over 108,994 people have died from the virus.
• The total number of people recovered from COVID-19 reached passed 404,878, according to the data.

Americas

• Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google said they will work together to create contact tracing technology that aims to slow the coronavirus spread by allowing users to opt into logging other phones they have been near.
• Uruguay started to...