A train killed 16 migrant workers who had fallen asleep on the track on Friday while they were heading back to their home village after losing their jobs in a coronavirus lockdown, police said.

A court asked the Indian government on Friday to respond to a challenge against its order for compulsory use of a contact tracing app by public and private sector employees returning to work amid the world's biggest coronavirus lockdown.

Indian police have filed a culpable homicide complaint against an LG Chem subsidiary over a toxic gas leak at its chemical plant in the south of the country that killed 11 people and forced 800 into hospital for treatment from poisoning.

Inflows into India's equity mutual funds nearly halved in April, industry data showed, as many investors rattled by stock market volatility due to the new coronavirus and the impact of a lockdown on the economy chose to stay away.

The Indian government plans to borrow 12 trillion rupees ($160 billion) in the fiscal year to March 2021, up from the previously budgeted 7.8 trillion rupees to cushion the blow from the new coronavirus pandemic, it said on Friday.

Doctors in hazmat suits ran temperature checks on passengers at Delhi airport and bags were disinfected as the first group of Indians returned home on special flights from Singapore and the Gulf on Friday since a sweeping lockdown was imposed in March.

Some residents frustrated over a strict coronavirus lockdown in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat, hurled stones and were met with teargas in clashes with paramilitary forces on Friday.

When gas began leaking from a nearby chemical factory and drifting towards his house in southern India, there were no warnings and no alarms, welder Elamanchili Venkatesh said.

India captain Virat Kohli and his team mates would be ready to spend two weeks in quarantine in Australia if that helped the tour go ahead as planned later this year, a top official of the Indian board has said.

Amid mounds of rubble and the ruins of buildings destroyed during nearly a decade of war, a Ramadan iftar meal has reunited a community in northwestern Syria.

Before she was laid off from her bartending job in Charleston, South Carolina, Shana Swain used to spend her nights serving food and mixing Manhattans and Cosmopolitans.

The magical atmosphere will be missing if the cricket season currently stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic resumes in empty stadiums, India captain Virat Kohli has said.

Kuwait will enact a "total curfew" from 4pm (1300 GMT) on Sunday through to May 30 to help to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, its cabinet said in a statement on Friday.

A 5-year old boy has died in New York from a rare inflammatory syndrome believed to be linked to the novel coronavirus, highlighting a potential new risk for children in the pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.

The U.S. government reported more catastrophic economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis on Friday as the pandemic pierced the very walls of the White House and California gave the green light for its factories to restart after a seven-week lockdown.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary, the wife of one of President Donald Trump's senior advisers, has tested positive for the coronavirus, raising alarm about the virus' potential spread within the White House's inner most circle.

Villagers placed the bodies of three victims of a deadly gas leak from an LG Polymers plant in Andhra Pradesh at the gates of the site on Saturday, and demanded the factory be shut down immediately and its top management arrested.

Hundreds of migrant workers in Gujarat have clashed for a second day with authorities, hurling stones at police trying to enforce a lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus.

More than 1,000 people queued up on Saturday to get free food parcels in Geneva, underscoring the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the working poor and undocumented immigrants even in wealthy Switzerland.

Pfizer Inc said on Friday it is in talks to shift more of its medicine production to outside contractors as it prepares for large-scale production of an experimental vaccine to prevent COVID-19, should it prove safe and effective.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday reported 1,248,040 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 28,974 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 2,180 to 75,477.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,251 to 168,551, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday.

China reported one new coronavirus case for Friday, unchanged from the day before, data from the national health authority showed on Saturday.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn is in self-quarantine for a couple of weeks after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, an FDA spokesman told Reuters late on Friday.

Thailand reported four new coronavirus cases and one more death on Saturday, bringing the total to 3,004 cases and 56 deaths since the outbreak started in January.

China will reform its disease prevention and control system to address weaknesses exposed by the coronavirus outbreak, a senior health official said on Saturday.

Singapore registered 753 new coronavirus infections, its health ministry said on Saturday, taking the city-state's total to 22,460 cases.

Chinese regulators have approved Novartis' Mayzent to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis in adults, the Swiss drug maker said in a statement on Saturday.

Russian authorities said on Saturday they had recorded 10,817 new cases of the coronavirus in the last day, pushing the nationwide tally to 198,676.

The Philippines' health ministry reported on Saturday that coronavirus deaths have reached more than 700.

Tokyo reported 36 new cases of coronavirus infections on Saturday, TV Asahi said, three less than a day earlier and the seventh consecutive day that new infections have remained below 100.

Indonesia reported on Saturday 533 new coronavirus infections, the biggest daily increase, taking the total number to 13,645, health ministry official Achmad Yurianto said.

Malaysia health authorities on Saturday reported 54 new coronavirus cases for a total of 6,589.

Slovakia on Friday recorded no new cases of coronavirus for the first time since March 10, government figures showed.

The number of deaths from the coronavirus in Mexico's best-known border city, Tijuana, has soared and the COVID-19 mortality rate is twice the national average, the health ministry says, after medical staff quickly fell ill as the outbreak rampaged through hospital wards.

A 5-year old boy has died in New York from a rare inflammatory syndrome believed to be linked to the novel coronavirus, highlighting a potential new risk for children in the pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.

Spain's daily death toll from the coronavirus fell to its second lowest since mid-March on Saturday, as half the country prepared to move to the next phase of an exit from one of Europe's strictest lockdowns.

One in four Portuguese with a monthly household income of 650 euros ($705) or less have lost all their income because of the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, a study by the National School of Public Health showed on Saturday.

More than 3.95 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 273,805 have died, according to a Reuters tally, as of 0214 GMT on Saturday.

Barcelona trained on Friday for the first time in nearly two months as the team held their first individual session as part of the league's four-phase plan to return to action after measures to halt the coronavirus were eased.

The 2020 K-League season started on Friday with a match between Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and Suwon Samsung Bluewings played without spectators after a delay of more than two months caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

India captain Virat Kohli and his team mates would be ready to spend two weeks in quarantine in Australia if that helped the tour go ahead as planned later this year, a top official of the Indian board has said.

Real Madrid forward Luka Jovic has not conducted full training or played any matches for over two months due to the coronavirus pandemic, but he somehow still managed to break his foot and is expected to be out of action for around seven weeks.

The reigning NBA champions Toronto Raptors said on Friday they will allow players access to the team's training facilities from next week under strict guidelines amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Children will need more access to sport in the post-pandemic world and there is a pressing need to press authorities to stop school sports "withering on the vine", World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said on Friday.

The magical atmosphere will be missing if the cricket season currently stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic resumes in empty stadiums, India captain Virat Kohli has said.

Major sports events around the world that are in the process of re-starting or have been rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic:

Barcelona's women's team were officially declared champions of Spain's Liga Iberdrola on Friday after the national soccer federation's executive committee agreed to end all non-professional competitions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. women's soccer team have filed to appeal a district court decision handed down last week that dismissed their claims for equal pay, a spokesperson for the team said on Friday.

FIFA's decision to temporarily allow up to five substitutions per match to help cope with potential fixture congestion was met coolly in South America on Friday.