ORLANDO (AP) -- Walt Disney World plans to reopen its restaurant and entertainment area later this month, though the theme parks and hotels will remain closed. Disney Springs vice president Matt Simon posted Thursday on the official Disney Parks Blog that the area will reopen May 20 with enhanced safety measures to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Those measures include increased clea...

LONDON (Reuters) -- A study by French scientists which suggests a man was infected with COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, nearly a month before France confirmed its first cases, could be important in assessing when and where the new coronavirus emerged, experts said on Tuesday. A man identified as the patient told a French TV station that he was surprised to learn that he had contracted COVID-19 sin...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- US President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged China to be transparent about the origins of the novel coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than a quarter of a million people since it started in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. Trump, speaking before leaving on a trip to Arizona, said the United States would release a report detailing the origins of the virus, bu...

Wearing masks has become a “new normal” due to the COVID-19 outbreak. One side effect is the waste resulting from the growing use of face masks. For instance, disposable masks have washed up on the shores of Hong Kong’s Soko Islands, raising new concerns. Gary Stokes of marine conservation organization Ocean’s Asia said he picked up 70 masks on a 100-meter stretch of one beach, only to find 30 ...

GENEVA (AFP) -- The World Health Organization said Monday that Washington had provided no evidence to support "speculative" claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. "We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus -- so from our perspective, this remains speculative," WHO em...

Global military expenditure saw its biggest uptick in a decade in 2019, researchers said, marking the first year two Asian countries were among the top three spenders. The world’s nations spent a combined $1.9 trillion on their militaries in 2019, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Compared with 2018, that represented annual growth of 3.6 percent, ...

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday stepped up a US campaign to hold China accountable for the spread of the deadly coronavirus, asserting there is "enormous evidence" the virus originated in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. The high-security bio-containment facility, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has called such claims "impossible". Pompeo, speaking on ABC's "This...

ROME (AP) -- From the United States to Europe to Asia, the easing of some coronavirus lockdowns brought millions out of their homes to enjoy the outdoors and warm spring temperatures. Yet the global pandemic is still slicing through the defenses of other nations, causing infections and deaths to march relentlessly higher. India on Sunday reported more than 2,600 infections, its biggest single-da...

DUBAI (AFP) -- One pixel at a time, Dubai will light up the facade of the world's tallest building to represent each donation made to relieve coronavirus-hit communities across the United Arab Emirates. The Burj Khalifa, which stands 828 metres (2,717 feet) high, will be transformed into the "world's tallest donation box" as part of a campaign to provide 10 million meals to low-income people. T...

LONDON (AFP) -- European leaders are backing an initiative from Brussels to raise 7.5 billion euros ($8.3 billion) to tackle the global coronavirus pandemic. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, outlined the fund-raising plan for an international effort to find a vaccine and treatment for COVID-19 on Friday. An online pledging conference will take place on Monday to p...

ROME (AFP) -- Europe on Sunday prepared for a further cautious easing of coronavirus restrictions following signs the pandemic may be slowing, with hard-hit Italy set to follow Spain in allowing people outside. More than 243,000 people have been killed and 3.4 million infected worldwide by the virus, which has left half of humanity under some form of lockdown and pushed the global economy toward...

TOKYO (AFP) -- Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to extend a nationwide state of emergency imposed over the coronavirus, possibly by another month, local media reported on Thursday. The measure was initially declared on April 7 across seven regions experiencing a spike in infections, but was later expanded to cover the entire country. With the initial month-long period coming to an en...

WASHINGTON -- The White House boasted Tuesday that the United States has tested more people for the coronavirus than South Korea, even as reports suggested that more testing needs to be done. In "West Wing Reads," a regular dispatch of news articles favorable to the administration, the White House cited a Monday article by the conservative Washington Examiner that reads: "US passes South Korea i...

Americans are increasingly hostile to China as the coronavirus pandemic wreaks havoc on the US and global economies and after three years of Trump administration antagonism toward the country, according to a nationwide poll. The poll, conducted last month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, found that two-thirds of those surveyed, or 66 percent, had an unfavorable view of China. That’s the...

Restrictions on travel and nonessential business over the past weeks to control the spread of COVID-19 have meant dramatically cleaner air for some of the world’s most polluted cities. Global cities including Delhi, Seoul, Los Angeles, and New York, experienced 25 percent to 65 percent reduction in fine particulate matter or PM2.5 air pollutants during the lockdown, according to a report by IQAi...