Hurricane Ian plowed into Florida’s Gulf Coast with catastrophic force yesterday, assaulting the state with howling winds, torrential rain and a treacherous surge of ocean surf that made it one of the most powerful storms on record to hit the United States.

The body of top US ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson was retrieved from the Himalayas by a search team yesterday, two days after she disappeared on the slopes of Nepal’s Manaslu peak.

Typhoon Noru made landfall in Vietnam early Wednesday morning, causing the closure of ten airports, damaging thousands of homes and causing widespread flooding.

A Spanish court has ordered Colombian music superstar Shakira to stand trial on charges of tax fraud to the tune of €14mn, with prosecutors seeking an eight-year sentence, filings showed yesterday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday defended military sales to Pakistan after withering criticism from growing US partner India, which considers itself the target of Islamabad’s F-16 planes.

India is pushing tech giants to make smartphones compatible with its home-grown navigation system within months, worrying the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi and Apple who fear elevated costs and disruptions as the move requires hardware changes, according to two industry sources and government documents.

Vietnam ordered hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes Tuesday as Super Typhoon Noru barrelled towards the busy city of Danang, with forecasters predicting the storm would be one of the biggest to hit the country.

Indian police are searching for a teacher accused of beating a low-caste student to death over a spelling mistake, officers said Tuesday, after suppressing violent protests triggered by the incident.

Nepali police have sought help from Interpol to locate the country's fugitive suspended national cricket captain, they said Tuesday.

The death toll from the sinking of an overcrowded ferry carrying Hindu devotees in northern Bangladesh climbed to 61 on Tuesday, with many passengers still missing two days after the disaster.

Residents across Florida scrambled to place sandbags around their homes and stockpile emergency supplies on Monday, emptying store shelves as Hurricane Ian spun toward the state carrying high winds, torrential rains and a powerful storm surge.

Thousands of Japanese offered flowers and prayers on Tuesday in honour of assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe ahead of a controversial state funeral attended by hundreds of foreign dignitaries.