Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh (Ill.) wants to get in the ring and work on his left jab, apparently.

Now a conservative talk radio host, Walsh is reportedly exploring a primary challenge to President Trump, and his reasons for doing so are not subtle.

"He's a bully and a coward," Walsh told The Washington Post, referring to the president. "Somebody's got to punch him in the face every single day." The former Illinois lawmaker, the Post notes, has been known for his own "incendiary comments" since he was elected to the House as part of the Tea Party wave in 2010 and served one term.

Assuming Walsh goes through with the plan, he'd reportedly take a different approach from Trump's currently lone primary challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who leans libertarian. Instead, Walsh, an immigration hard-liner who voted for Trump in 2016, would attack Trump from the right and "on moral grounds." (It's important to note Weld is also campaigning against Trump's "outrageous racism.")

The Post also mentioned former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), and former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), as possible GOP primary challengers. Flake said he has no intention of running, but did add that several Republican donors who are worried about the state of the economy have called to ask him to at least consider launching a bid. "They are wondering, if the economy isn't stellar next year, how is the party going to win?," he said. "By the president offending more people?"

Finally, there are the 2012 nostalgists, reportedly self-aware of the futility of their fantasy, who still want a certain Utah politician to throw his hat into the ring. But Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is not expected enter the race. Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell

Respirator masks, gloves, and other protective equipment kept in the U.S. government's emergency stockpile are almost all used up, Department of Homeland Security officials tell The Washington Post.

Hospital workers already lack supplies they need to protect themselves as they treat COVID-19 patients, and an empty stockpile will only exacerbate the problem. But "the stockpile was designed to respond to handful of cities. It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic," and so it's already close to empty even before the pandemic has hit its peak, one DHS official said.

The national stockpile is one of the few escapes from a marketplace full of price gouging, and as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) described in a recent press conference, shortages have forced states to outbid each other just to get necessary supplies. "The supply chain for PPE worldwide has broken down, and there is a lot of price gouging happening," the anonymous DHS official told the Post. It all leaves hospitals and other care facilities with a risk of completely running out of supplies, another official said. Kathryn Krawczyk

A Chinese county that was largely unscathed by the novel COVID-19 coronavirus went into lockdown Wednesday, signaling fears of a possible second wave in the country where the virus originated, The South China Morning Post reports.

The county of Jia in Henan province, home to 600,000 people, is now in lockdown after infections reportedly spread at a local hospital. There were previously only 12 confirmed cases in Henan, despite it being situated just north of Hubei province, where China's epicenter, Wuhan, is located. However, U.S. intelligence reportedly believes China under-reported the actual number of cases.

Either way, the new lockdown, which shuts down all non-essential business and requires people to carry special permits to leave their homes, and wear face masks and have their temperature taken when out and about, comes at a time when the country clearly wants to get its economy up and running again. It's unclear if such measures will be limited to the county or if it's a sign of things to come for the rest of the world's most populous country, but President Xi Jinping has warned that China must return to normal gradually in the hopes of preventing a full-scale COVID-19 return. Read more at The South China Morning Post. Tim O'Donnell

Former Vice President Joe Biden isn't afraid to reach across the aisle during this national crisis.

In a press gaggle on Wednesday, Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to President Trump, snapped at Biden's apparent "criticism" of the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus. "Why doesn't Vice President Biden call the White House today and offer some support?" Conway questioned — and so Biden offered to do so.

"I think it's really disappointing to have President Obama's number two ... out there, criticizing, instead of saying 'hey, here is what we did that we thought was effective,' Conway said Wednesday. She repeated the criticism on Fox News and in a tweet, even though Biden had offered up both his and former President Barack Obama's advice on MSNBC Tuesday night.

Biden's deputy campaign manager fired back with another statement on Wednesday, saying Biden "has been extending his advice for months" — Fox News agreed that was true. "The Obama-Biden administration even wrote a literal playbook for pandemic response, but unfortunately Trump's administration left it on the shelf," the statement continued.

Now, the ball is in Trump's court. Kathryn Krawczyk

Yet another big movie is clearing out of 2020 completely.

Universal announced Wednesday its animated sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, which was originally set for release this summer, has been delayed one year and will now hit theaters in July 2021, per The Hollywood Reporter.

It had previously been announced that Minions would not make its previously-scheduled release date because Illumination's studio in Paris was forced to temporarily close amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, though it was unclear at the time whether the film could still hit theaters sometime in 2020. The first Minions, a Despicable Me prequel, took in more than $1 billion worldwide in 2015 and was one of the highest-grossing films of that year.

This is just the latest example of a major 2020 film being delayed all the way until next year because of the coronavirus pandemic after Sony on Tuesday delayed Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was scheduled to hit theaters this July, to March 2021. Universal also previously moved the ninth Fast & Furious film from May 2020 to April 2021, while Disney postponed Black Widow indefinitely.

The summer movie season typically brings in major business for Hollywood, but fewer and fewer films remain on the calendar for that period this year as theaters throughout the United States remain largely closed in accordance with social distancing guidelines. A rare blockbuster to be postponed to another date this summer was Wonder Woman 1984, as Warner Bros. moved the DC sequel from June to August 2020 in hopes theaters would widely reopen by then.

Whether they will, and whether audiences will quickly return if they do, isn't clear. AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron on Tuesday told CNBC he "would love to think" there can still be a summer movie season this year, but as far as when the chain's theaters can begin resuming operations, he said at this time, "nobody knows." Brendan Morrow

Experts are now convinced a February Champions League soccer game between the Italian club Atalanta and the Spanish club Valencia was at the forefront of an explosion of COVID-19 cases in Italy's Lombardy region, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, The Wall Street Journal reports.

More than 40,000 people crammed into San Siro stadium in Milan to watch the contest, a 4-1 victory for Atalanta. Then, two weeks later Bergamo, where Atalanta is based, experienced a major spike in cases, with scientists pinpointing the match as a crucial petri dish. "Two weeks after Feb. 19, there was an incredible explosion of cases," said Dr. Francesco Le Foche, an immunologist in charge of infectious diseases at Policlinico Umberto I in Rome. "The match played a huge role in disseminating coronavirus throughout Lombardy and in Bergamo in particular."

To put it in perspective, 35 percent of Valencia's traveling squad tested positive for the virus after the team returned to Spain. Only one Atalanta player tested positive, but the club has published death notices on its website for five people linked to the virus who were close to the club within the last two weeks, all of whom were present for Atalanta's victory over Valencia.

The match shows the type of role sporting events can play in furthering the spread of the virus, further explaining why nearly every professional league has shut down operations, and casting doubt on whether some sports will come back at all this year. Read more at The Wall Street Journal. Tim O'Donnell

Everyone wants to write the great coronavirus anthem but — apologies to Bono — there can only be one John Mayer.

On his Instagram Live program this weekend, Mayer premiered a parody song called "Drone Shot of My Yacht," in which he skewers billionaires sitting out the pandemic on their luxury boats. It was such a hit, Mayer then reposted a minute-long version later in the week, Variety reports:

"This weekend's 'Not Now' goes to David Geffen, who posted an Instagram photo of himself on his boat saying he was isolated in the Grenadines," Mayer had told fans of his inspiration. "And I gotta tell you, I don't know where the Grenadines are. The most offensive thing to me in this post is assuming that I know where the Grenadines are." Jeva Lange