Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh will be sentenced Thursday, three months after she pleaded guilty to federal fraud, tax and conspiracy charges over a scheme involving sales of her self-published Healthy Holly children's books.

Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of about five years in prison. Pugh's lawyers asked the judge for a more lenient prison sentence of one year and one day, noting that she is a first-time offender and she entered a guilty plea.

Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET

Stocks continued their downward slide on Thursday, with major indexes falling into correction territory. Investors are worried about the economic toll of a widening coronavirus epidemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 500 points in the opening minutes of trading. The blue chip index is down more than 10% from its recent peak on Feb. 12 — the technical definition of a "correction." The broader S&P 500 index has also lost more than 10% of its value in just over a week.

Updated at 11:50 a.m. ET

Federal health officials say they have resolved a problem that has hindered wide testing for the new coronavirus in the United States, a crucial practice for fighting the spread of the dangerous new infection.

A problem with one ingredient in test kits that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributed to labs around the country had created a frustrating bottleneck in testing, requiring most testing to occur at the CDC in Atlanta.