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France plans to quickly ramp up domestic production of face masks and respirators to respond to urgent needs of hospitals and caregivers during the coronavirus epidemic, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.

Thirty-eight critically ill coronavirus patients will be transferred by high-speed train from the Paris area to less overwhelmed regions on Wednesday to ease pressure on the capital's intensive-care capacity, French health officials said.

When nine police officers showed up to make an arrest near Melrose Avenue in the Bronx last Wednesday, none wore a mask or gloves to protect them from coronavirus.

The first ventilators which Britain has recently ordered from businesses will be completed this weekend and be available to the National Health Service (NHS) next week, a senior government minister said on Tuesday.

Group video chat app Houseparty offered a reward of $1 million for evidence of what it said was a smear campaign against the company as it fought to quash claims that the app was stealing data from others installed on the same smartphone.

The United States aims to build hundreds of temporary hospitals to ease pressure on medical centers struggling to keep up with a surge of coronavirus patients, officials said on Tuesday, a day after the number of U.S. deaths hit a new daily high.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said his brother Chris Cuomo, a television anchor at CNN, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, as cases in the state continued to climb rapidly and deaths rose past the 1,500 mark.

The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has climbed by 837 to 12,428, the Civil Protection Agency said on Tuesday, with the daily tally rising, albeit slightly, for a second day running.

The peak of Switzerland's coronavirus epidemic could stretch into later this spring or summer, the head of the Swiss government's communicable diseases division said on Tuesday, as the country's death toll continued to rise.

Walt Disney Co will launch its Disney+ service in India on April 3, the company said on Tuesday, intensifying rivalry with Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc's Prime Video in a country where demand for online streaming is surging.

The European Commission said on Tuesday there was no evidence that a drug touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential miracle cure against COVID-19 was effective against the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

India sealed off the headquarters of a Muslim missionary group on Tuesday and ordered an investigation into accusations it held religious meetings that officials fear may have infected dozens of people with the coronavirus.

Huawei warned on Tuesday that 2020 would be its most difficult year yet due to American trade restrictions which dealt a blow to its overseas sales in 2019, and predicted the Chinese government would retaliate against the United States.

The city of Helsinki had the right to scrap its contract with Siemens over the failed automation of the Finnish capital's metro, but both sides broke agreements, a Helsinki district court ruled on Tuesday in a long-running legal dispute.

Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbed past 3,000 on Monday, the deadliest day yet in the country's mounting crisis, while New York cheered the arrival of a gleaming 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship as a sign of hope in the city's desperate fight.

The number of deaths from coronavirus in the United Kingdom rose by 27% in the space of a day to 1,789 as of Monday at 1600 GMT, the government said.

Turkish defence and electronics firms are teaming up to produce 5,000 ventilators to help treat coronavirus patients, the head of a military drone manufacturer said on Tuesday.

The peak of Switzerland's coronavirus epidemic could be reached by the early summer, Daniel Koch, head of the Swiss government's communicable diseases division, said on Tuesday.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp is seeing signs of a sales recovery in China, it said on Tuesday, as the country starts to return to normal following the coronavirus lockdown.