Secular News

The Puerto Rican rapper, who won a Grammy for album of the year, will be the first artist to perform the half time show entirely in Spanish.

The Puerto Rican rapper, who won a Grammy for album of the year, will be the first artist to perform the half time show entirely in Spanish.

Thailand’s rival parties hold final rallies later on Friday in a last-ditch push to win over undecided voters among a public craving change but still deeply split over the remedy for years of ulcerous political and economic decline. The reformist People’s Party is expected to win the most seats in Sunday’s ballot, with many of the 3 million first-time voters likely to endorse its plan to share stakes in the economy and power more equally. But the conservative Bhumjaithai Party, led by caretaker...

Charles ’Sonny’ Burton was sentenced to death for a fatal shooting during a 1991 robbery

A unit of Fosun Pharma has struck a US$1.55 billion deal to license its home-grown cancer drug to Japan’s Eisai, adding to a wave of out-licensing agreements that are channelling billions of dollars into Chinese novel drug development. The deal comes as Chinese novel drug makers are having more say in how their new medicines are developed with global partners, shifting from simple one-off licensing fees, where a company is paid for granting rights to its drug, to long-term collaborations. Under...

Xiao Jie, a senior official in the Chinese province of Hainan who played a leading role in building reefs in disputed territories in the South China Sea, has been detained on suspicion of corruption. Xiao, 66, became the first Communist Party chief and mayor of Sansha when it was established as a prefecture-level city in 2012 to administer territories held by Beijing, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands and Macclesfield Bank. He was accused of “serious violations of discipline and...

Toy maker Hasbro Inc. announced that Monopoly fans had voted online to add a cat token to the board game, replacing the iron.

The jeweller says it wants to reduce its exposure to silver after the price of the metal soars.

Two people were injured when a cluster of gas-filled balloons intended for a birthday party exploded inside a lift in India. A 21-year-old student, Himani Tapriya, suffered burns to her arm, neck and stomach while the delivery man, 32-year-old Raju Kumar Mahato, was also injured in the fireball. CCTV footage of the incident shows Tapriya wheeling a bag into the small passenger lift. Mahato enters with a plastic bag filled with white, gold and peach balloons and balances them against the wall. As...

Teachers in Hong Kong will be given a year to fulfil a proposed government requirement to obtain a practising certificate, in light of the large number of applications expected in the first 12 months of its implementation, the education minister has said. Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin on Friday also warned schools not to help teachers submit their applications if they found that educators had not completed enough hours of continuing professional development, among other...

A senior Russian military official was shot in Moscow early Friday and has been hospitalized, authorities said.

Halifax describes the figure as a "milestone", but potentially daunting for first-time buyers.