A 10-year-old Chinese boy survived falling 20 floors from an apartment window.

Armed police will patrol schools in China’s capital after a farmer attacked schoolchildren with a hammer, then burned himself to death in the third classroom assault in as many days.

Cut off from worried families and sleeping in their offices, hundreds of medical workers are isolated with their patients as Beijing closes off entire hospitals amid sweeping measures to stop the spread of the Sars virus.

Patients and 2,000 workers from a Beijing hospital that was hastily sealed were under observation Friday today for symptoms of the Sars virus, as fearful residents emptied grocery stores of rice, oil and frozen food in a bout of panic buying.