Some guests have started to leave a locked-down hotel in Spain?s Tenerife island after undergoing screening for a new virus that is infecting hundreds worldwide.

Hoping to boost morale in Japan by assuring people that the Tokyo Olympics will be held as scheduled, IOC President Thomas Bach held a conference call limited to three of Japan’s main media outlets ? newspapers Asahi and Yomiuri, and the Kyodo news agency.

A fire erupted in a residential building in the Iranian city of Qom before dawn on Friday, killing at least five people, including a 2-year-old, and injuring 38, Iran?s state TV reported.

The Swiss government announced an immediate ban Friday on all 'public and private' events in the country involving more than 1,000 people as a measure to halt the spread of COVID-19.

Pope Francis canceled his official audiences Friday after apparently coming down with a cold.

Chinese swimmer Sun Yang was banned for eight years on Friday and will miss the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because he broke anti-doping rules in a late-night incident in which a blood sample container was smashed with a hammer.

Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido declared a state of emergency on Friday over the rapid spread of the new virus there.

South Africa has imposed a $3,300 fine or 2-year prison term on a man convicted for racist comments in a video that went viral last year.

Muslims in a northeastern neighborhood of India’s capital returned for weekly prayers at fire-bombed mosques on Friday, two days after a 72-hour clash between Hindus and Muslims that left at least 40 dead and hundreds injured.

She wakes every day long before dawn to chat with her three stranded daughters on the other side of the world in China’s locked-down city of Wuhan, anxious to see they have started a new day virus-free.