Russia overtook China in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday, when its tally climbed above 87,000, as pressure rose on the government to consider easing lockdown restrictions for businesses to help shore up the rattled economy.  Russia, the world's largest country by...

Spain Monday counted another 331 new virus deaths, with the daily toll rising by several dozen from its lowest level in more than a month. The figure lifted the total to 23,521 in Spain, which has suffered the world's third-highest number of deaths but which on Sunday began easing lockdown...

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, back at work after recovering from COVID-19, said Monday it was still too dangerous to relax a stringent lockdown hammering the economy as that may cause a deadly second outbreak. Speaking outside his Downing Street residence a month and a day since...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been praised at home and abroad for her reaction to the coronavirus crisis, but as voices of discontent grow louder, support for the government's strategy could be on the wane. Though Germany began to lift lockdown measures last week, Merkel has urged...

France reported a big fall in its coronavirus toll Sunday, with 242 deaths in 24 hours, a drop of more than a third on the previous day. The epidemic has now claimed 22,856 lives in the country since the beginning of March, health officials said. The number of deaths in hospitals -- 152...

Russia registered on Sunday another spike of coronavirus cases as a new record number of people tested positive over the last 24 hours. The tally rose to 80,949 with the new 6,361 cases reported since Saturday, the country's emergency team said in a statement. The number of fatalities...

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte vowed Sunday to reopen schools by September and allow many businesses to resume in a week's time as the country emerges from a near-total shutdown. Conte told La Repubblica newspaper that he will spell out the full details of how Italy will ease its way...

After six weeks stuck at home, Spain's children were allowed out Sunday to run, play or go for a walk as the government eased one of the world's toughest coronavirus lockdowns. Spain is among the hardest hit countries, with a death toll running at more than 23,000, putting it behind only...

 Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson will return to work at the start of this week, according to reports Sunday just hours after it was announced that the UK's coronavirus death toll had passed the "tragic" milestone of 20,000. The Press Association said Johnson would be back in his...

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will present the government's plan to unwind the country's coronavirus lockdown to parliament on Tuesday, followed by a debate and vote, his office said in a statement. The lockdown ordered by President Emmanuel Macron to slow the spread of the virus...

Britain could hit the grim milestone of 20,000 COVID-19 deaths later Saturday, when the daily count is added to the current toll of 19,506 people who tested positive for the new coronavirus and died in hospital. As the death toll rises, the government is facing growing criticism over...

Italy's economically punishing coronavirus lockdown, combined with big-spend stimulus packages to support families and firms, will push public debt and deficit to dizzying heights, the government said Friday. The cabinet approved the spring budget document (DEF), which forecast that the...

Stuck in their Tirana flat under a coronavirus lockdown, 81-year-old Osman Hoxha and his family quietly mark the start of Ramadan, recalling the communist era when practicing religion meant risking death. Like many parts of the world, mosques in Muslim-majority Albania are eerily empty...

 Close to 20,000 people have died in hospital in the United Kingdom after testing positive for the new coronavirus, data showed on Friday, as Britain approached a milestone it had hoped never to reach. As the death toll rose relentlessly, speculation mounted that Prime Minister Boris...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces the biggest conundrum of his premiership as he recuperates from COVID-19: how to lift a lockdown that is destroying swathes of the British economy without triggering a deadly second wave of the outbreak. Johnson, 55, is on the mend at his country residence...

Italy is to ease its coronavirus lockdown, the toughest and longest in Europe, over the next four weeks, media reported Friday although there was no official confirmation. "The next four Mondays will mark the country's reopening" following the lockdown implemented last month to slow the...

Left empty as the coronavirus pandemic forced events to be cancelled, Berlin's exhibition centre Messe is getting a makeover with the help of German soldiers -- to reemerge as a hospital in a few weeks' time. Wires are still hanging from the ceilings, but when construction is finished, the...

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla joined Britain’s “Clap for Carers” ritual on Thursday, their first appearance together since the heir to the throne recovered from the coronavirus. The nationwide event has become a weekly fixture in recent weeks, with Britons up and down the country...

France on Thursday reported 516 new deaths from the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, bringing its overall toll to 21,856 fatalities, the country's health department said. But it said the number of patients in intensive care is continuing a two-week decline, falling by 165 over 24...

Bitterly divided EU leaders will try Thursday to hammer out a huge coronavirus rescue package, as the WHO warned the pandemic is far from over. While there are signs the COVID-19 outbreak is slowing and some countries have started to ease restrictions affecting billions of people, the world...