3 d. ago Storm landfall leaves 1 dead as thousands evacuate in Philippines

A tropical storm lashed the northern and central Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least one person dead and forcing more than 22,000 people to evacuate from flood- and landslide-prone villages, officials said. Tropical Storm Fengshen was tracked at midday over Manila Bay with sustained winds of up to 65kph (40 mph) and gusts of up to 90kph (56 mph). It was expected to move away from the main northern Philippine region of Luzon on Sunday night, government forecasters said. A villager drowned on...

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3 d. ago Tropical Storm Fengshen kills 8 in Philippines, heads for China

A tropical storm lashed the northern and central Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least eight people dead and forcing more than 22,000 people to evacuate from flood- and landslide-prone villages. Authorities warned that tropical Storm Fengshen may intensify as it heads for China and Vietnam. Known locally as Ramil, the storm caused torrential rains, floods and landslides at the weekend. The fatalities included a family of five who died after a tree crashed into their home, said Junie Castillo,...

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3 d. ago Tropical Storm Fengshen kills at least 7 in Philippines, heads for China

A tropical storm lashed the northern and central Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least seven people dead and forcing more than 22,000 people to evacuate from flood- and landslide-prone villages. Authorities warned that tropical Storm Fengshen may intensify as it heads for China and Vietnam. The government’s disaster-mitigation agency said seven deaths were reported. Nearly 14,000 people who evacuated were still displaced from their homes by Monday morning, the agency said. Known locally as...

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4 d. ago Nepal’s Gen Z uprising splinters as ideological cracks start to show

One month after Nepal’s youth-led revolt redrew the political map, competing visions for the future and the daunting challenge of turning protest into meaningful reform are casting uncertainty over the country’s political future. In the wake of the September uprising, which ousted the government of K.P. Sharma Oli and left more than 70 people dead, new Gen Z factions have proliferated, defined by their deep ideological divides. Groups with names like the Gen Z Alliance, Real Gen Z Nepal and Gen...

Politics

6 d. ago Taiwan woman caught taking fingerprints from dead person to forge loan agreement

A woman in Taiwan has been jailed for using the fingerprints of a dead man after approaching his body under the pretence of viewing the remains and forging a promissory note issued by him. The 59-year-old woman, surnamed Li, was caught red-handed in a funeral centre in Hsinchu, northwestern Taiwan after the dead man’s family called the police as a result of her abnormal behaviour, the news outlet SETN reported. Li and the man, identified as Peng, previously had debt disputes. When she heard that...

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1 week ago Mass shooting at crowded South Carolina bar kills 4, injures 20

A mass shooting early Sunday at a crowded bar on an idyllic island considered to be the largest Gullah community on the South Carolina coast has left four people dead and at least 20 injured, officials said. A large crowd was at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St Helena Island when sheriff’s deputies arrived and found many people with gunshot wounds. An estimated 5,000 or more Gullah people living on the island trace their ancestry back to enslaved West Africans who once worked rice plantations in the...

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1 week ago Across Mexico, deadly downpours and flooding kill at least 28

Heavy rainfall in Mexico has left at least 28 people dead and more missing, authorities said on Friday, as downpours triggered several landslides, cut off power in some municipalities and caused rivers to burst their banks. Mexico’s civil defence authorities reported intense rainfall in 31 of 32 states, with the worst-affected areas being Veracruz in the east, Queretaro and Hidalgo in the centre, and the north-central state of San Luis Potosi. Hidalgo authorities reported 16 deaths and said at...

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1 week ago Japan’s Sapporo bans coins in coffins to help the dead pay for ferry to afterlife

The northern Japanese city of Sapporo has issued an unusual warning to its populace by urging them not to place 10-yen (10 US cents) coins in coffins during cremations. Sapporo city in Hokkaido prefecture issued an official notice to crematoriums in April ordering them to stop people putting 10-yen (US$0.07) coins in caskets, according to local news outlets. In Hokkaido, tradition sees people put a 10-yen coin in the coffin for the dead so that they have enough money to pay for the ferry fare...

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1 week ago Blast at Tennessee explosives plant leaves multiple people dead and missing

An explosion at a Tennessee military munitions plant left multiple people dead and missing on Friday, authorities said, as secondary blasts forced rescuers to keep their distance from the burning field of debris. The blast, which people reported hearing and feeling kilometres away, occurred at Accurate Energetic Systems in rural Tennessee. The company’s website says it makes and tests explosives at an eight-building facility that sprawls across wooded hills in the Bucksnort area, about 97km (60...

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2 w. ago Venezuela says foiled ‘false flag’ bomb plot targeting US embassy in Caracas

President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that Venezuela foiled a false flag operation by what he called local terrorists to plant explosives at the US embassy in Caracas and exacerbate a dispute between the two countries over drug trafficking. Speaking on his weekly TV show, Maduro said two sources which he did not name “agreed on the possibility that a local terrorist group placed an explosive device at the US embassy in Caracas” in order to aggravate the dispute with Washington. Jorge Rodriguez,...

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2 w. ago Venezuela says foiled ‘false flag’ bomb plot targeting US embassy

President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that Venezuela foiled a false flag operation by what he called local terrorists to plant explosives at the US embassy in Caracas and exacerbate a dispute between the two countries over drug trafficking. Speaking on his weekly TV show, Maduro said two sources which he did not name “agreed on the possibility that a local terrorist group placed an explosive device at the US embassy in Caracas” in order to aggravate the dispute with Washington. Jorge Rodriguez,...

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2 w. ago Hong Kong police arrest driver after pedestrian killed in crash, 3 injured

Hong Kong police have arrested a 60-year-old man after his car rammed into a van, leaving a foreign pedestrian dead and three other people injured. Police received a report at 3.53pm on Monday that a white Lexus private car driven by a 60-year-old man, travelling along Po Heung Lane eastbound, rammed into a stationary white Toyota van near a roundabout. The van then knocked down two pedestrians: a 37-year-old foreign woman and an 88-year-old woman, as well as the 64-year-old van driver. The...

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2 w. ago Hong Kong police arrest driver after 2 pedestrians killed in crash

Hong Kong police have arrested a 60-year-old man after his car rammed into a stationary van, leaving two pedestrians dead and two other people injured. Police received a report at 3.53pm on Monday that a Lexus car driven by a 60-year-old man, travelling eastbound along Po Heung Lane, had slammed into a stationary Toyota van near a roundabout. The van then knocked down two women, aged 37 and 88, as well as its 64-year-old driver, who was reportedly about to climb into his vehicle. The 37-year-old...

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2 w. ago 2 killed in UK synagogue ‘terrorist attack’ on Yom Kippur, suspect shot

Two people were killed on Thursday and four wounded outside a Manchester synagogue packed with worshippers on a Jewish holiday, UK police said, adding they shot dead the suspect in the “terrorist attack”. Two other people were arrested after the car and stabbing attack, which occurred as Jewish communities around the world mark the Yom Kippur holiday, the holiest in the Jewish calendar. Police said the two dead victims were Jewish, and declared the attack a “terrorist incident” in the northwest...

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2 w. ago How China was ready for Super Typhoon Ragasa – and what still needs to be done

Super Typhoon Ragasa may have been the biggest storm of its kind in the world this year, but when it made landfall in mainland China last month, it left no fatalities in its wake. Rewind to 2018 when Mangkhut, the last super typhoon to hit Guangdong province, struck and at least four people were killed in southern China. Typhoon Hato also left nine dead in Guangdong in 2017, and Typhoon Fanapi caused 34 deaths in the coastal province in 2010. The contrast is even sharper when compared with the...

Politics

3 w. ago Typhoon Bualoi batters Vietnam with ‘terrible gusts’, leaving 2 dead, 12 missing

Typhoon Bualoi made landfall in northern central Vietnam in the early hours of Monday, damaging houses and knocking down power grids, with at least two people dead and 12 fishermen missing as the storm brought flooding rains and huge swells. The typhoon was over Nghe An province as of 8am, with maximum wind speeds weakening to 88km/h (55mph) from 117 km/h when it made landfall hours earlier, according to the national weather forecast agency. Before making landfall, Bualoi had moved along the...

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3 w. ago Typhoon Bualoi batters Vietnam with ‘terrible gusts’, leaving 9 dead, 17 missing

Typhoon Bualoi made landfall in northern central Vietnam in the early hours of Monday, damaging houses and knocking down power grids, with at least nine people dead and 17 missing as the storm brought flooding rains and huge swells. By 11am, the typhoon was moving over Nghe An province into Laos, with maximum wind speeds weakening to 74km/h (47 mph) from 117km/h when it made landfall, the weather agency said. State media said rescue teams were searching for 17 missing fishermen. Before making...

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3 w. ago Taiwan races to find Ragasa victims as ‘utterly vile’ political firestorm erupts

As rescuers raced to find people still missing after catastrophic floods struck eastern Taiwan, attention turned to responsibility and recrimination within the island’s political circles, turning the disaster zone into a partisan battleground. At least 14 people have been confirmed dead after a landslide dam on the Mataian River burst during Super Typhoon Ragasa, submerging much of Guangfu township and leaving homes and farms destroyed. Grieving families have wept at temporary shelters, while...

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4 w. ago Shooting at Dallas ICE office injures multiple people; gunman dead

Multiple people were wounded and one person was killed in a shooting on Wednesday at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Dallas, and the shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, federal officials said. Police responded to reports of the shooting at the office in northwest Dallas at about 7.30am local time, local media reported. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a social media post that there were multiple injuries and fatalities and...

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4 w. ago At least one killed in shooting at Dallas ICE office; gunman dead

A shooter killed at least one person and wounded others in a shooting on Wednesday at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Dallas before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, local and federal authorities said. Police responded to reports of the shooting at the office in northwest Dallas at about 6.40am local time, the Dallas Police Department said on social media. The suspect opened fire on the office from an adjacent building, according to the preliminary...

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