Winds and rain from an approaching typhoon hampered rescue efforts today in the eastern Philippines, where at least 350 people died in flash floods and landslides in the storm-weary region.

At least 20 convicted murderers, rapists and robbers have escaped a prison in the northern Philippines.

Muslim rebels who kidnapped around 24 hostages, including three Americans, have dumped the beheaded bodies of two of their captives near a main road outside the capital of a remote island in the southern Philippines.

Deadly street battles erupted in a southern Philippines town today as a self-styled ‘‘suicide squad’’ of Muslim extremists invaded a hospital and church, seizing patients, doctors and a priest.