US President Donald Trump is backing down on his threat to shut down the government after Democrats refused to grant him the funding to build the wall he wants on the border with Mexico.

President Donald Trump sought the open arms of Twitter and Fox News to creatively explain away inconvenient facts about his legal peril and his promised border wall before GOP senators dragged him back to reality with a rebuke from his own party for ignoring a cold-blooded murder OK'd by a foreign colleague.

Facebook has revealed that a software bug exposed the photos of up to 6.8 million users, including pictures they had not posted.

On Wednesday, while the political world was focused on the news that former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen had been sentenced to three years in prison for a variety of crimes, something else of potentially huge import got somewhat glossed over: American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, admitted it had helped facilitate a hush payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation being run by the Southern District of New York.

Amazon has teamed up with police in the US in an effort to stop thieves who steal parcels left outside homes.

President Donald Trump publicly clashed Tuesday with the top House and Senate Democrats over funding for the border wall and the threat of a government shutdown during an Oval Office meeting that was open to the press, a sign of what divided government in Washington may look like next year.

France's beleaguered president, Emmanuel Macron, will address the nation later Monday amid widespread protests that over the past four weeks have morphed from a grassroots movement against fuel tax hikes, to disparate demonstrations against his presidency.

The methods Facebook uses to thwart ad-blocking technology have been criticised by web developers.

Emails written by Facebook's chief and his deputies show the firm struck secret deals to give some developers special access to user data while refusing others, according to MPs.

America may get its most intimate look yet inside Robert Mueller's secretive Russia investigation in the next four days, with a series of disclosures that have the potential to be greatly damaging for President Donald Trump.