Hello Australia!! - The fall of a Hollywood mogul - The world is warned to prepare for a Covid-19 pandemic - There's no space travel without math - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Once a top Hollywood producer and one of the most powerful and influential businessmen in the world, Harvey Weinstein is now a convicted rapist who was booked into Rikers Island jail in New York City.  The jury handed up guilty verdicts to charges of third-degree rape and criminal sexual act in the first degree, but cleared Weinstein of the most serious count of predatory sexual assault.  He faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced in March, and an appeal is already planned.  Weinstein pleaded not guilty to all charges, but still faces a separate investigation into criminal sexual acts in Los Angeles.  At least 80 women - including actors Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, and Salma Hayek - accuse him of sexual misconduct stretching back decades.

At least 30 people are hurt after a driver plowed through a children's carnival parade in central Germany.  Police in Volkmarsen said the driver appeared to be targeting the children.  They arrested a 29-year-old German citizen on suspicion of attempted homicide, the motive as yet unclear.  

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) says countries should be "in a phase of preparedness" to protect against a possible Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.  "We must focus on containment while doing everything we can to focus on a potential pandemic," said WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who says he is deeply concerned about the sudden explosion of new infections in Iran, Italy, and South Korea.  Covid-19 has spread to around 30 countries around the world; there are almost 80,000 confirmed cases and more than 2,600 deaths - mostly in mainland China, and the deaths are occurring predominantly among the elderly.

The woman who played a key role in getting America's space program off the ground has died at age 101.  African-American mathematician Katherine Johnson plotted the trajectories for NASA's first manned space shot with Alan Shepard in 1961 and for John Glenn in 1962; she also played a key role in sending Americans to the Moon.  Then-President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ms. Johnson in 2017, and her life was made into the movie "Hidden Figures" in 2015.  "Ms. Johnson helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of colour in the universal human quest to explore space," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.   

Wall Street for some reason decided that the coronavirus was a good reason to lose around three percent of its value.  The S&P 500 fell 3.3 percent, the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.7 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average sunk 1,030 points (3.5 percent).  Companies that rely on tourism including airlines and resorts were hit especially hard amid fears that consumers would curb their travel plans this year.

A magistrate in Lesotho says Prime Minister Thomas Thabane should not be charged with the murder of his first wife until they clear up the legal question over whether sitting PMs are immune from prosecution.  Prosecutors accuse Thabane and his second wife in the shooting of Lipolelo Thabane in 2017.