[naviga:h3]China: Coronavirus cases continue to fall, 118 new deaths[/naviga:h3]

BEIJING — China reported a further fall in new coronavirus cases to 889 on Friday as health officials expressed optimism over containment of the outbreak that has caused more than 2,200 deaths and is spreading elsewhere.

Containment of the illness has been a struggle far from the epicenter in central China as a major South Korean city urged residents to stay indoors.

New infections in China have been falling for days, although changes in how it counts cases have caused doubts about the true trajectory of the epidemic.

“The downward trend will not be reversed,” insisted Ding Xiangyang, deputy chief secretary of the State Council and a member of the central government’s supervision group said on Thursday.

China’s figures for the previous 24 hours brought the total number of cases to 75,465. The 118 newly reported deaths raised the total to 2,236. More than 1,000 cases and 11 deaths have been confirmed outside the mainland.

Iran announced three more infections Thursday, a day after it reported its first two deaths, and South Korea reported its first fatality. Japan said two former passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship had died of the illness.

China last week had started recording new cases without waiting for laboratory results, causing a significant spike in the number of cases. But on Thursday it returned to its prior way of counting, and removed some cases from the tally because lab tests came back negative.

[naviga:h3]German gunman calling for genocide kills 9 people[/naviga:h3]

HANAU, Germany — A German who shot and killed nine people of foreign background in a rampage that began at a hookah bar frequented by immigrants had posted an online rant calling for the “complete extermination” of many “races or cultures in our midst,” authorities said Thursday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the attack exposed the “poison” of racism in the country.

The gunman, Tobias Rathjen, 43, was found dead at his home along with his mother, and authorities said they were treating the rampage as an act of domestic terrorism.

Turks, ethnic Kurds and people with backgrounds from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Romania were among those killed, according to news reports. Turkey’s ambassador said five of the dead were Turkish citizens.

Rathjen opened fire at the hookah bar and a neighboring cafe in the Frankfurt suburb of Hanau around 10 p.m. Wednesday, killing several people, then traveled about 1.5 miles and fired on a car and a sports bar, claiming more victims. In addition to the dead, six people were injured, one seriously.