WASHINGTON -- The U.S. federal government confiscated a shipment of 1 million N95 masks that had been ordered for firefighters in Miami-Dade County in southeastern U.S. state of Florida, local media reported recently, citing a top county official.

"We are going to meet the plane and actually take them. That's like gold, you know. But we got the word from the company that they had been taken from the federal government," Frank Rollason, county director of emergency management, was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the WLRN Public Radio and Television.

- - - -

BEIJING -- China's steel sector was badly hurt by the novel coronavirus outbreak, with production slowing and prices slumping in the first quarter of this year, but analysts expect recovery in Q2 as demand rebounds.

Production of rolled steel totaled 267 million tonnes in Q1, down 1.6 percent year on year, as compared with an increase of 10.8 percent during the same period last year, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed.

- - - -

NEW DELHI -- India's federal health ministry on Saturday morning reported 52 new deaths and 1,054 fresh positive cases since last evening, taking the number of deaths to 775 and total cases to 24,506.

"As on 8:00 a.m. (local time), today 775 deaths related to novel coronavirus have been recorded in the country," said an information released by the ministry.

According to ministry officials, 5,063 people have been discharged from hospitals after showing improvement, and the number of active cases in the country stood at 18,668.

VIENTIANE -- The Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd. (LCRC), a joint venture based in the Lao capital Vientiane in charge of the railway, said on Saturday that the China Railway Group Limited (CREC) has resumed construction at all its work sites along the China-Laos Railway.

Huang Hong, general manager of the CREC China-Laos Railway Project Headquarters in Vientiane, told Xinhua that the CREC, as the main force in the construction of China-Laos railway, has resumed construction in the northern Laos' mountains by 100 percent, which means the railway building has almost returned to the normal level.

Huang also handed over 200,000 medical masks donated by the CREC to Somdy Douangdy, Lao deputy prime minister and chair of the Task Force Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.