WASHINGTON - NEW claims for US unemployment benefits fell more than expected in the past week, government data showed on Thursday.
The Department of Labour said the number of initial claims for jobless benefits in the week ending May 2 dipped to 601,000, a decrease of 34,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 635,000.
SHANGHAI - CHINA'S passenger car sales likely rose to a record monthly high of 1.15 million units in April, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday, citing industry figures.
Official figures from the government-affiliated China Association of Automobile Manufacturers are due within days.
IPOH (Malaysia) - MALAYSIA'S ruling coalition took control of a disputed legislature on Thursday as police arrested 65 people, including five opposition MPs, in a battle over who governed the peninsula's second largest state.
Police, backed by water cannon, deployed barbed wire around the state legislature in Ipoh, the capital of Perak state in northwestern Malaysia, while it held its first session since the state government was ousted.
KUALA LUMPUR - MORE than 300 stray dogs that were dumped on isolated islands turned to cannibalism after weeks of starvation, animal welfare activists said on Thursday.
The plight of the dogs cast away by villagers on two small, uninhabited islands off Malaysia's western Selangor state ignited outrage after activists this week released photographs showing dogs eating the carcasses of ones that had died.
