Austin Horn

The 124th annual Boston Marathon has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Boston Athletic Association announced the move in a statement on Thursday, saying that the marathon will instead be held as a virtual event.

All participants who were set to run in the event initially slated for April 20 and later pushed back to Sept. 14 will be offered a full refund of their entry fee and have the opportunity to participate in the alternative.

The coronavirus pandemic has put nearly 14 million people in the Caribbean and Latin America at risk of missing meals, according to a report released Wednesday from the U.N.'s World Food Programme.

The National Women's Soccer League announced Wednesday that it will return in June to play a 25-game tournament without fans.

The league's nine teams are set to gather in Utah to play for 30 days, according to a statement the league sent out Wednesday. All players, officials and staff members will be tested two days before their arrival in Utah and will be subject to consistent coronavirus testing and symptom review during the tournament, according to the statement.

Updated at 10:35 p.m. ET

The mayor of Minneapolis says four Minneapolis Police Department officers involved in the death of a black man in police custody have been terminated. The FBI is investigating the incident.

After the firings were announced, a crowd several blocks long marched from the site of the killing to the city's Third Precinct police building, according to The Star Tribune.

New data released by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union shows that among the grocery store workers it represents, 10,000 have been infected by or are known to have been exposed to coronavirus and 68 have died from it. At least 3,257 have been infected with the virus, the union estimated on Friday.

Beijing has signaled it will push through sweeping national security legislation for Hong Kong, its most aggressive effort yet to exert its control over the semi-autonomous city since it was returned to Chinese control in 1997.

Updated at 5:16 p.m. ET

Texas is moving forward with further reopening plans Monday but will delay the execution of those plans in the state's northern panhandle in light of its relatively high rate of confirmed coronavirus cases near Amarillo. Amarillo alone had more than 700 new cases on Friday.

There's a new drink on the menu at the Twisted Citrus, and it matches some new drapery.

The Rubber Duckie Mimosa, a concoction of champagne and blue rasberry lemonade with a classic yellow rubber duck floating on top, was inspired by the North Canton, Ohio breakfast joint's method of protecting its patrons from the spread of COVID-19: shower curtains.

In mid-March, when the unproven idea of giving coronavirus patients anti-malarial drugs emerged on social media and on Fox News, the online pharmacy HealthWarehouse said orders for hydroxychloroquine started to spike.

After three consecutive days with no new coronavirus cases reported, New Zealand allowed most businesses to reopen on Thursday.

The island country, which is home to nearly 5 million people, has been praised for its swift response to the spread of the coronavirus. New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has even said that the country has "won [the] battle" of widespread COVID-19 community transmission.

In 1988, American mathematician Scott Johnson, 27, died after falling off a cliff in Sydney, Australia. His death was initially classified as a suicide, but this week, authorities arrested a suspect, a 49-year-old male, and charged him with murdering Johnson.

The Chinese city of Wuhan will begin what it is calling "10 days of mass battle" to test all 11 million residents after the discovery of a new cluster of coronavirus cases, NPR's Emily Feng reported.

Each of the city's districts will be required to create a testing plan by Tuesday, according Reuters, which first reported the initiative.

Jeffery Gerritt, editor of the Palestine Herald-Press in East Texas, hadn't planned on writing a series about inmates who were dying in county jails.

But he thought the death of a woman in jail, and the local authorities' silence on the matter, was worth pointing out to his town of about 19,000 residents.

The United Nations is calling on members to contribute more to a global plan to fight the effects of coronavirus in "fragile countries."

As part of its Global Humanitarian Response Plan, the U.N. is requesting $6.7 billion in aid — more than tripling the $2 billion it requested in late March. Most of the countries that would receive the aid are located in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America. In total, the aid would reach 63 countries.

An independent oversight board for the social media giant Facebook announced its initial 20 members today in a New York Times opinion piece.

Human Rights Watch is accusing China of discrimination against African communities during the coronavirus pandemic.

Authorities in China's Guangdong province, home to China's largest African population, have singled out people of African descent for testing, the rights group alleges. It characterizes the tests as forcible, and says that as many Africans were forced to quarantine, landlords evicted them.

Three family members — a woman, her husband and her adult son — were charged Monday in the fatal shooting of a security guard at a Family Dollar store in Flint, Mich.

According to Genesee County prosecutor David Leyton, the security guard, 43-year-old Calvin Munerlyn, was shot shortly after telling the woman that her daughter could not enter the store because she wasn't wearing a mask.

Under state executive order, all customers and employees in stores are required to wear masks as a precaution against the coronavirus.

The NFL announced on Monday that it has moved the 2020 season's international games back to the U.S.

One game scheduled to take place in Mexico City, and four games slated for London, will instead take place in the U.S. due to the coronavirus, according to a statement from the NFL.

About 4.5 million Italians are returning to work Monday as Italy — one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 — begins lifting some restrictions meant to stop the spread of the disease.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a ban on all assault-style firearms Friday.

The ban includes "1,500 models and variants," including the popular AR-15 rifle. It will prohibit those firearms, as well as some components, from being used, sold or imported.

The owner of the Amusement Park Drive-In Theatre in Montana is happy to be back in business, after getting conflicting messages from officials about whether the drive-in is allowed to operate under newly relaxed restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 1 million people around the world have recovered from COVID-19, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

Around 154,000 people in the United States have recovered from the deadly virus.

In a move that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called "unprecedented," the New York City subway system will begin halting service every night from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. so that trains can be disinfected.

Cuomo announced the decision on Thursday, saying the new policy was needed to help keep essential workers who rely on the city's subway system safe from the coronavirus. The effort will begin on Wednesday, May 6.

"It is a massive undertaking that we have never done before," Cuomo said.

The official number of people in the United States killed by COVID-19 has reached 50,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death and confirmed cases totals are far higher than any other country's.

More than 190,000 people have died from the coronavirus globally, and case totals have reached over 2.7 million, as of Friday afternoon.

With few to no sporting events taking place because of the coronavirus crisis, sports journalism is feeling the crunch.

Vox Media announced Friday that it would furlough around 9% of its workforce for three months starting on May 1, according to a staff email from CEO Jim Bankoff obtained by NPR. Several of those furloughs are hitting the media group's flagship sports website SB Nation.

The World Press Photo Foundation announced on Thursday the winners of its 2020 photo and storytelling contests, with an electrifying image of a young man reciting poetry at a protest in Sudan taking the top photo prize.

Photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba's image "Straight Voice" captures the young man amid a blackout in Khartoum. His face is illuminated by the cell phones of protestors, who were rallying to demand that Sudan's military leaders hand over power to civilians.