Saudi Arabia cut travel to Islam’s holiest sites, South Korea toughened penalties for those breaking quarantines and airports across Latin America looked for signs of sick passengers Thursday as a new virus troubled a mushrooming swath of the globe. With the illness pushing its way into a sixth continent and the number of sick and […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday revealed there was a secret plan to use a double to make public appearances for him, while insisting he vetoed it — and that he is the real Putin. Putin’s comments showed that a conspiracy theory widespread on the internet that the Russian strongman has been impersonated over the […]

Estonia reported its first coronavirus case on Thursday, a day after the man returned to the Baltic nation of just 1.3 million people from his homeland Iran. “The person, a permanent resident of Estonia who is not a citizen, arrived in Estonia on Wednesday evening,” Social Affairs Minister Tanel Kiik told public broadcaster ERR. He […]

Iraq announced the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the capital Baghdad on Thursday, taking nationwide infections to six and raising concerns about the capacity of the dilapidated health system to respond. The government announced sweeping measures late Wednesday to try to contain the spread of the virus, ordering the closure of schools and universities, […]

Germany’s highest court on Thursday upheld a ban on headscarves for Muslim trainee lawyers in courts, finding that the requirement of maintaining religious neutrality was justified. The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling came after a Frankfurt-born German-Moroccan legal trainee filed a challenge to Hesse state’s rules. In the western state, trainees who keep their headscarves on […]

Two more patients have tested positive for coronavirus in Britain, health authorities said Thursday, bringing the total number of diagnosed cases in the UK to 15. The two patients have been transferred to specialist infection centres after contracting the virus in Italy and on the Spanish island of Tenerife, said Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief […]

Saudi Arabia on Thursday suspended visas for pilgrims wishing to visit Mecca over coronavirus fears, the foreign ministry said. The government is “suspending entry to the Kingdom for the purpose of Umrah and visiting the Prophet’s Mosque temporarily”, the foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be […]

Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called Thursday on public schools to close nationwide from March 2 to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. “The government considers the health and safety of children above anything else,” Abe said. “We request all primary, junior high and high schools… across the nation to close temporarily from March […]

North Korea has postponed the new school term to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, reports said Thursday, the latest measure as the ill-equipped country ramps up efforts to prevent a devastating outbreak. Pyongyang has not reported a single case of the virus now known as COVID-19, which originated in the central Chinese city […]

Denmark reported its first coronavirus case Thursday, a man who had returned from a skiing holiday in northern Italy which has become a hotspot for the disease. “The man who came back from a skiing trip with his wife and son on February 24 has been suffering since then from a cough and a temperature,” […]