Manila

Youth officials dressed in homemade “Star Wars” outfits assisted residents in Manila on Monday, making sure that everyone remained inside their homes unless they had a special pass to be outside. They also helped deliver food and supplies to those in need.

A plane carrying eight people has caught fire while attempting to take off from Manila’s airport on a flight bound for Japan, killing all those on board

Officials say a recently dismissed security guard has released dozens of hostages and walked out of a Philippine shopping mall, ending a daylong hostage crisis

An American woman was arrested in the Philippines on Wednesday for attempting to smuggle a 6-day-old baby onto a U.S.-bound flight, authorities said. Jennifer Erin Talbot attempted to smuggle a baby out of Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, according Marlon Toledo of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). An investigation is underway. Talbot was arrested after attempting to hide...

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...

Philippine customs officials were astonished when they opened nicely gift-wrapped boxes of cookies and oatmeal flown in all the way from Poland and found a hair-raising contraband: hundreds of live tarantulas. Bureau of Customs personnel seized the 757 tarantulas at a mail exchange center near Manila’s international airport Monday and later arrested a Filipino man who tried to claim the...

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,...

Typhoon Mangkhut roared toward densely populated Hong Kong and southern China on Sunday after ravaging across the northern Philippines with ferocious winds and heavy rain that left at least 28 dead in landslides and collapsed houses. The strongest storm so far this year in the world sliced across the northern tip of Luzon Island on Saturday, a breadbasket that is...

The Philippine president, notorious for having cursed the pope and world leaders like former U.S. President Barack Obama, has sparked new outrage by calling God “stupid” in Asia’s largest Catholic country. Opposition Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV shot back Monday by describing President Rodrigo Duterte as “one evil man” and his remarks as “very much consistent with the deceitfulness, heartlessness and...

A former U.S. Army sniper and two other ex-American soldiers were convicted Wednesday in the contract killing of a real estate agent in the Philippines for an international crime boss who thought the woman had cheated him on a land deal. Joseph Hunter, a onetime sergeant from Kentucky with a Special Forces background, Adam Samia and Carl David Stillwell were...

Lunar New Year festivities around the world included parades, marching bands and an ancient Japanese festival.

People in Asia and around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year on Friday with festivals, parades and temple visits to ask for blessings. This year marks the year of the dog, one of the 12 animals in the Chinese astrological chart. People in Beijing celebrated with family feasts and visits to bustling temple fairs amid the mid-winter chill....

Lava fountaining regularly from the Philippines’ most active volcano has flowed almost 2 miles from the crater in a dazzling but increasingly dangerous eruption. Mount Mayon has spewed lava up to 2,000 feet high at times Tuesday and early Wednesday and its ash plumes stretched up to 3 miles above the crater. Lava flows in two gullies had advanced down...

The Philippines’ most active volcano continued to spew fountains of red-hot lava and massive ash plumes on Tuesday. Lava from Mount Mayon shot up more than 2,000 feet while ash rose close to two miles. About 56,000 people have fled the area.

Thousands have been evacuated as the Philippines fears imminent eruption.

The Philippines’ most active volcano exploded thunderously Monday, sending a huge gray column of lava fragments, ash and steam into the sky and prompting authorities to warn that a violent eruption may be imminent. The noontime explosion sent superheated lava, molten rocks and steam cascading down Mount Mayon’s slopes and shrouded nearby villages in darkness, said Renato Solidum of the...

Nearly 15,000 people have fled from villages around the Philippines’ most active volcano as lava flowed down its crater Monday in a gentle eruption that scientists warned could turn explosive. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology increased the alert level for Mount Mayon late Sunday to three on a scale of five, indicating an increased prospect of a hazardous...

Viewers intrigued by the Gianni Versace murder case featured in the new season of “American Crime Story” can retrace the fashion designer’s steps at his former mansion in South Beach.