Jim Gomez

Two strong earthquakes hours apart struck a group of sparsely populated islands in the Luzon Strait in the northern Philippines early Saturday, killing at least eight people, injuring about 60 and damaging ancestral houses famous among tourists. The quakes collapsed homes of stone and wood and roused residents from sleep, said Roldan Esdicul, who heads the Batanes provincial disaster-response office....

Asian nations are scrambling to contain highly contagious African swine fever, with Vietnam culling 2.6 million pigs and China reporting a million dead in an unprecedentedly huge epidemic some fear is out of control. Smaller outbreaks have been reported in Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, Cambodia and Mongolia after cases were first reported in China’s northeast in August. The U.N....

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s name is not on the ballot but Monday’s midterm elections are seen as a crucial referendum on his rise to power with a brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, unorthodox style and contentious embrace of China. Nearly 62 million Filipinos have registered to choose among 43,500 candidates vying for about 18,000 congressional and local posts in one...

The Philippine president has threatened to ship containers of garbage back to Canada and dump some at the country’s embassy in Manila if Canadian officials don’t take back waste that Filipino officials say was illegally shipped to Manila years ago. More than 100 containers of household trash, including plastic bottles and bags, newspapers and used adult diapers, were shipped in...

The Philippines’ Catriona Gray was named Miss Universe 2018 in a competition concluding Monday in Bangkok, besting contestants from 93 other countries and delighting her home nation.

For over a century, the Bells of Balangiga have not rung in the Philippines, a silence that the president last year called “painful.” Now, the revered bells will once again be heard in the country. Hundreds of Filipino villagers in 1901, armed with bolos and disguised as women, used one of Balangiga town’s church bells to signal the start of...

Philippine immigration authorities say they have arrested an American Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting altar boys in a remote central town in a case one official described as “shocking and appalling.” Bureau of Immigration spokeswoman Dana Sandoval said Thursday the Rev. Kenneth Bernard Hendricks, who has been indicted in Ohio for alleged illicit sexual conduct in the Philippines,...

A Philippine mayor said Monday that it’s unlikely any of the dozens of people thought buried in a huge landslide set off by Typhoon Mangkhut will be found alive, though rescuers were still digging through the massive mound of mud and debris covering a chapel where they had sheltered. Mayor Victorio Palangdan of Itogon town in Benguet province, among the...

Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into the Philippines’ northeastern coast early Saturday, its ferocious winds and blinding rain ripping off tin roof sheets and knocking out power, and plowed through the agricultural region at the start of the onslaught. The typhoon made landfall before dawn in the coastal town of Baggao in Cagayan province on the northern tip of Luzon Island, a...

Philippine authorities were evacuating thousands of people from the path of the most powerful typhoon this year, closing schools, readying bulldozers for landslides and placing rescuers and troops on full alert in the country’s north. More than 4 million people live in areas at most risk from the storm, which the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii categorized as a...

A Philippine inter-island ferry with more than 250 passengers and crew, including Christmas holiday travelers, sank Thursday after being battered by fierce winds and big waves off the country’s northeast, leaving at least four people dead and at least seven others missing, officials said. About 240 were pulled alive, some with injuries, from the rough sea by navy and coast...

The Philippine government declared the end Monday to the militant siege of a southern city that lasted five months, left more than 1,100 people dead and sparked fears of the Islamic State group gaining a foothold in Southeast Asia. Speaking at an annual meeting of the region’s defense ministers, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters that combat operations in Marawi...

Just hours after Stephen Paddock unleashed a hail of bullets on a country music festival in Las Vegas, the Islamic State group issued a flurry of statements claiming the 64-year-old gunman as one of its own. The quick responsibility claim — discounted by FBI officials — is the latest in a series of dubious or seemingly fake ISIS claims, reflecting...

A global pressure campaign on North Korea propelled by sharp new U.N. sanctions received a welcome boost Sunday from China, the North’s economic lifeline, as Beijing called on its neighbor to halt its missile and nuclear tests....
The Trump administration cautiously embraced China’s apparent newfound cooperation, while putting it on notice that the U.S. would be watching closely to ensure it...

The lone suspect behind a deadly attack on a casino and shopping complex in Manila was a heavily indebted Filipino gambling addict, police said Sunday, bolstering their claim the assault was not terrorism-related. The man’s immediate family confirmed his identity as Jessie Carlos — a married father of three and former Finance Department employee who owed more than $80,000 dollars....

A gunman stormed a casino in the Philippine capital and torched gambling tables in the crowded space, creating a choking level of smoke that killed at least 36 people, authorities said. The gunman stuffed a backpack with casino chips before he fled but was found dead in an adjacent hotel early Friday of an apparent suicide. The bodies were found...

A Catholic priest who was taken hostage by militants linked to the Islamic State group says he’s being held alongside 200 other captives, including children, in what appeared to be a battle-scarred part of a southern Philippine city. In a video apparently taken under duress by militants, Father Teresito Suganob said his captors wanted the military to withdraw its forces...

Islamic State group-linked militants swept through a southern Philippine city, beheading a police chief, burning buildings, seizing a Catholic priest and his worshippers and raising the black flag of IS, authorities said Wednesday. President Rodrigo Duterte, who had declared martial law across the southern third of the nation, warned he may expand it nationwide. At least 21 people have died...

U.S. President Donald Trump has called Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte and expressed Washington’s commitment to their treaty alliance and his interest in developing “a warm, working relationship,” a Filipino official said Sunday. Presidential spokesman Ernie Abella said Trump mentioned he was looking forward to visiting the Philippines in November to attend an East Asia summit that Duterte will host with...