CAPE TOWN -- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has decided to extend troop deployment across the country to help enforce COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, the parliament said on Thursday.

Thandi Modise, speaker of the National Assembly (the Lower House), and Amos Masondo, chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (the Upper House), have received correspondence from Ramaphosa about that decision, parliamentary spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said in a statement emailed to Xinhua. (South Africa-Troop-Deployment)

- - - -

WASHINGTON -- U.S. coronavirus cases rise by nearly 55,000 over the past 24 hours Thursday, a new one-day record surge, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The national count of confirmed cases has surpassed 2.7 million to reach 2,735,554, with 128,684 deaths, according to the university's latest tally. (US-Coronavirus Cases-Rise)

- - - -

PYONGYANG -- Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), guided an enlarged Political Bureau meeting here on Thursday over COVID-19 protection measures, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.

"At the meeting, as the first agenda item they reviewed the work of the past six months for preventing the malignant contagious disease and discussed an issue on further consolidating the present anti-epidemic situation by enhancing the state emergency anti-epidemic work," the report said. (DPRK-COVID-19-Meeting)

- - - -

WASHINGTON -- The United States should restore sanctions against Russian intelligence and defense sectors, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday after being briefed by top intelligence officials on the Russian-Taliban bounty intelligence.

Pelosi said at a press briefing that the White House had previously asked the Congress to "take out the sanctions on Russia that pertained to the intelligence and the defense sectors, the very sector that is accused of possible threats on our men and women in uniform." (US-Russia-Sanctions)