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Gilead Sciences Inc's shares surged 16% in after hours trading on Thursday following a media report detailing encouraging partial data from trials of the U.S. company's experimental drug remdesivir in severe COVID-19 patients.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) circulated on Thursday a draft order asking FCC members to approve Ligado Networks' low-power nationwide 5G network despite objections from the Defense Department and major U.S. airlines.

China's Wuhan city, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, said on Friday it had revised up its total coronavirus death toll by 1,290, according to state-run CCTV.

New Zealand justified its tough lockdown policies despite a significant drop in the number of coronavirus cases on Friday, with officials citing two new deaths as evidence of the risk from lifting social restrictions too soon.

Mainland China reported on Friday that new confirmed cases of the coronavirus fell to a two-week low, as infections involving travellers arriving from abroad sharply fell.

Honduran Health Minister Alba Consuelo Flores said on Thursday that a Cuban medical brigade would join local medics in the fight against the novel coronavirus as it spreads in the poor Central American country.

Moderna Inc said on Thursday that it received a $483 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to accelerate the development of its vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus.

Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday agreed to buy BlueJeans Network Inc, a rival of Zoom Video Communications Inc, for less than $500 million as it looks to tap into the new-found popularity of video-conferencing apps.

Facebook Inc said on Thursday it would start notifying users who had engaged with false posts about COVID-19 which could cause physical harm, such as drinking bleach to cure the virus, and connect them to accurate information.

Mexican Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Thursday that the country might have as many as 55,951 people infected with the fast-spreading novel coronavirus, twice the estimated number reported last week.

Sports fans and players across the world frustrated by canceled matches because of the coronavirus epidemic are turning to e-sports, with professional real-world athletes joining virtual game tournaments of football, auto racing and basketball.

Britain extended its nationwide lockdown on Thursday as stand-in leader Dominic Raab ordered Britons to stay at home for at least another three weeks to prevent the spread of a coronavirus outbreak which has already claimed over 138,000 lives globally.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday spun synthetic swabs could be used for coronavirus testing by collecting a sample from the front of the nose.

A senior FBI cybersecurity official said on Thursday that foreign government hackers have broken into institutions conducting research into treatments for COVID-19, the sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus.

New Jersey's governor on Thursday ordered a probe into long-term care facilities after a "makeshift morgue" was found at a nursing home devastated by the novel coronavirus, raising questions about the death toll at homes for the elderly.

U.S. coronavirus deaths rose above 33,000 on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, even as President Donald Trump laid out White House guidelines for reopening the economy.

Republican U.S. lawmakers echoed President Donald Trump's criticism of the World Health Organization on Thursday, with some suggesting he withhold aid until the U.N. agency's director general resigns while others called for an international investigation of its handling of the coronavirus.

Toyota-backed self driving company Pony.ai said on Friday it would provide an autonomous delivery service to residents of Irvine, California, as demand for online orders surges because of the coronavirus lockdown.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday that he expects more than 5 million Americans will have been tested for the novel coronavirus by the end of April.

Canada's Pacific province of British Columbia was already battling an opioid epidemic when the new coronavirus hit, compounding the threat to drug users, many of whom are homeless and particularly vulnerable during the pandemic.