The death toll in an eastern China coal mine collapse has risen to 11, with 10 miners still trapped underground, state media reported. One week after the disaster, rescue crews were clearing fallen rock from the shaft, with the remaining miners believed to be located 74 meters (242 feet) below the surface, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Friday. ...

Global markets remained in sell-off mode on Friday, as investor worries sent shares in Asia, Europe and the US tumbling. The benchmark S&P 500 index in the US slid more than 1.7%, closing down almost 10% from its September high.   The Dow Jones fell 1.2%, while the Nasdaq slumped more than 2%.   The falls extended losses earlier in ...

Offering its over two billion monthly users new ways to express themselves, Facebook has introduced new music features, including an option to add a song to photos and videos they share to Facebook Stories.   “And, we’re bringing it to News Feed, too!,” Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that users would soon be able to add songs ...

Chinese police report 14 children have been injured in an attack by a knife-wielding assailant at a kindergarten in the western city of Chongqing. The report posted on the police force’s microblog said the early Friday morning assault at the Xinshiji Kindergarten was carried out by a 39-year-old woman identified only by her surname, Liu.   China has suffered a ...

Polls will open in the Republic of Ireland later on Friday as voters elect their president. Mr Higgins is the first incumbent in 50 years to face a challenge in his bid for a second seven-year erm.   The president is Ireland’s “first citizen”, but has limited power – the role is mainly symbolic and he or she cannot get ...

Floods sweep away students, teachers near Dead Sea, 18 dead   Flash floods unleashed by heavy rains swept away middle school students and teachers visiting hot springs near the Dead Sea on Thursday, killing 18 and injuring 35 as the torrent carried some for several kilometers, a civil defense official said.  Thirteen people escaped without injuries, said Brig. Gen. Farid ...

Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green has been named in Parliament as the leading businessman accused by a newspaper of sexual and racial harassment. Peter Hain, who identified him in the Lords, said it was his duty to name him, given the “serious and repeated” nature of the allegations.   The Telegraph accused but did not name the businessman on Tuesday. ...

Google said Thursday it fired 48 employees in the past two years, including 13 “senior” executives, as a result of sexual harassment allegations, citing “an increasingly hard line” on inappropriate conduct.   The US tech giant issued the statement from chief executive Sundar Pichai in response to a New York Times report that one senior Google employee, Android creator Andy ...

Britain’s Information Commissioner (ICO) has slapped Facebook with a fine of £500,000, the maximum possible, for its behaviour in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.   The ICO’s investigation found that between 2007 to 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by giving app developers access to their information without informed consent.  The fine was the maximum allowed under the ...

From virtual reality police training programmes to gun-toting drones and iris scanners, a public security expo in China showed the range of increasingly high-tech tools available to the country’s police.   The exhibition, which ran Tuesday to Friday in Beijing, emphasised surveillance and monitoring technology just as the Communist government’s domestic security spending has skyrocketed.  Facial-recognition screens analysing candid shots ...