Typhoon Mangkhut barreled into southern China Sunday after lashing the northern Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain that left many people dead and dozens more feared buried in a landslide.
More than 2.4 million people have been relocated in southern China's Guangdong province to flee the massive typhoon and nearly 50,000 fishing boats were called back to port. The gambling enclave of Macau closed casinos for the first time.
Mangkhut made landfall in the Guangdong city of Taishan, packing wind speeds of 100 miles per hour. State television reported that surging waves flooded a seaside hotel.
The storm also broke windows, felled trees, tore bamboo scaffolding off buildings under construction and flooded areas with sometimes waist-high waters.
Flooding in North Carolina from tropical depression Florence is devastating neighborhoods.
Associated Press correspondent [Ron] Robert Bumsted reports from a canoe as he surveys the damage.
"We are actually paddling through what was an auto shop, a tire shop and on the other side, a neighborhood near Jacksonville, North Carolina. The rain has stopped and the winds are calm but the worse is definitely not over here for the people living in Jacksonville. And you can see cars underwater. Just around the corner as we passed this billboard, locals tell me that there was a National Guard convoy, there was coming through this area. They say maybe four or five trucks came in, only maybe three came out."
A large American meat-packing company has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges of discrimination involving Muslim workers who walked off the job in a dispute over prayer breaks.
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The U.N. human rights office reports street protests over the lack of basic services in Iraq's Basra Governorate are escalating as the government fails to deal with the causes of the population's rising discontent.
Correspondent Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from the agency's headquarters in Geneva.
Iraqis living in Basra have many grievances. Since July, they have been protesting the absence of basic services, electricity and water shortages, as well as the heavy pollution and lack of jobs.
The U.N. human rights office says it is worried by the escalation of street protests in recent weeks, which in some cases have been deadly. In the first week of this month, Iraq's Ministry of Health reports at least 11 people were killed in relation to the protests.
In an unprecedented announcement Sunday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan promised to offer Pakistani citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Afghans born to refugee families that his country has been hosting for decades.
The displaced families have fled decades of conflict, ethnic and religious persecution, poverty and economic hardships in turmoil-hit Afghanistan.
A senior administration official says President Trump is likely to announce new tariffs on Chinese imports as early as Monday.
Reuters correspondent Lucy Fielder reports.
The tariffs will on about $200 billion worth of goods, including Internet tech products and other electronics, and consumer goods, including Chinese seafood, furniture, plastics and bicycles.
The Wall Street Journal reported the tariff level will probably be about 10 percent, far below the 25 percent the administration said it was considering.
Eritrea and Ethiopia signed an agreement at a meeting in Saudi Arabia Sunday, further strengthening relations between the two countries which had been at war for twenty years.
The agreement was signed in the presence of Saudi Arabia's King Salman and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. Details were not released.
On Twitter Sunday, President Trump claimed, without evidence, that the ongoing criminal investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign's links to Russia is "not allowed under the law." He called the investigation "illegal" and said it "continues in search of a crime."
Trump did not comment on the latest development in the now 16-month-long investigation, which was the guilty plea Friday by his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to corruption charges.
You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Christopher Cruise, VOA news.
