While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, May 1

US intelligence agencies don't believe the Covid-19 coronavirus was created by humans or genetically modified in China, a controversial finding that comes as President Donald Trump increasingly tries to pin blame on Beijing for the global pandemic.

The intelligence community "concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man made or genetically modified," according to a statement from the DNI office on Thursday.

The statement goes on to say the nation's intelligence community "will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan," referring to the Chinese city where the virus was first reported.

The findings come as Trump ratchets up pressure on China over its pandemic response.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with the new coronavirus and was temporarily stepping down to recover.

Mishustin, 54, suggested that First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov serve as acting prime minister in his absence.

Putin, who appointed Mishustin in January, supported the proposal.

New York officials launched an investigation on Thursday after police found dozens of decomposing bodies in trucks outside a funeral parlour overwhelmed by the coronavirus outbreak.

Officers made the grisly discovery on Wednesday after residents complained that an awful smell was coming from two vehicles parked outside the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in Brooklyn.

"We are investigating," Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner, told reporters, adding that his department had not received complaints about the business in the past.

Britain organised a flypast and 140,000 people sent cards to mark the 100th birthday on Thursday of a World War II veteran whose staggering fund-raising efforts have inspired a country in the depths of a coronavirus outbreak.

Having served Britain in the last century, "Captain Tom" Moore has thrust himself into the thick of its latest battle by doing laps of his garden to raise money for health service charities.

At the latest tally, he had raised more than £30 million (S$53 million) to help support staff and volunteers working on the coronavirus effort in the state-run National Health Service (NHS).

France's football league declared the season over on Thursday, with Paris Saint-Germain named as Ligue 1 champions.

PSG led the table by 12 points from Marseille when the season was suspended in mid-March because of the coronavirus outbreak, which has gone on to kill more than 24,000 people in France.

The announcement by the LFP comes after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Tuesday that "professional sports leagues, notably football, cannot restart" because of the risks linked to the pandemic.