NO COVID-19 TESTING AT HOME YET BUT QUICKER OPTIONS COMING

WASHINGTON» Home testing for the new coronavirus may sound like a good idea, but U.S. regulators say it’s still too risky.

They’ve stopped companies that quickly launched hometesting kits until they can show their products can accurately detect the virus.

For now, the only way Americans can get tested is at hospitals, clinics or drive-thru sites, with a doctor’s order.

After a botched rollout, testing in the U.S. has ramped up thanks to high-volume testing machines and new rapid tests. Last week, federal officials said total tests topped 1.4 million, and labs are processing nearly 100,000 tests daily.

Still, testing continues to be constrained by shortages of medical supplies such as gloves, masks and swabs. And the widespread drive-thru testing proposed for parking lots at chains has barely gotten off the ground.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is aggressively pushing new options onto the market.

Queen Elizabeth, in rare public address, urges resolve in face of epidemic. LONDON» Queen Elizabeth II, in a rare televised address Sunday evening, sought to rally her fellow Britons to confront the coronavirus pandemic with the resolve and selfdiscipline that have seen the nation through its greatest trials.

“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,” the queen said in taped remarks from Windsor Castle, where she has sequestered herself against a virus that has infected at least 40,000 people in Britain, including her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The queen called it “a time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”

Chinese human rights lawyer released from prison.

HONG KONG» A Chinese human rights lawyer who took up sensitive cases of journalists, democracy advocates and followers of banned spiritual movements was released from prison on Sunday after being held for nearly five years, his wife said.

The lawyer, Wang Quanzhang, was the last of hundreds of legal workers to face prosecution after a widespread crackdown by China on the field in 2015. He was not tried until December 2018, more than three years after his detention. During his trial, which was held in secret, he was sentenced to 4½ years in prison for “subversion of state power,” a charge used to target people authorities believe are attempting to organize challenges to the ruling Communist Party.

Wang’s wife, Li Wenzu, wrote on Twitter that she received a call from him Sunday morning saying he had been released from prison but she had said in recent days that she feared they would not be able to reunite.

Legal rights organizations have warned that while Wang has been released from prison, he could remain far from truly free and possibly under some form of house arrest or strict surveillance.

Tiger at NYC’s Bronx Zoo tests positive for coronavirus.

NEW YORK» A tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the new coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the U.S. or a tiger anywhere, federal officials and the zoo said Sunday.

The 4-year-old Malayan tiger named Nadia — and six other tigers and lions that have also fallen ill — are believed to have been infected by a zoo employee who wasn’t yet showing symptoms, the zoo said. The first animal started showing symptoms March 27, and all are doing well and expected to recover, said the zoo, which has been closed to the public since March 16.

The finding raises new questions about transmission of the virus in animals.