Landfall by Co-May in the port city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang province early on Wednesday was soon followed by warnings of a tsunami

International News via Reuters:

Shanghai relocated more than 280,000 people, halted hundreds of flights and ferry services and imposed speed limits on roads and railways on Wednesday as a tropical storm whipped eastern China with gales and heavy rain.

Landfall by Co-May in the port city of Zhoushan in Zhejiang province early on Wednesday was soon followed by warnings of a tsunami set off by a powerful earthquake off Russia’s far east, raising concerns of larger-than-expected storm surges along the Chinese coast. 

Authorities lifted the tsunami warnings for Shanghai and Zhoushan later in the day.

While the winds from Co-May were weaker than those generated by typhoons, the Chinese financial hub and other cities in the Yangtze River delta have taken no chances. 

At least 640 flights could be cancelled at Shanghai’s two main airports on Wednesday, including 410 at Pudong and 230 at Hongqiao, authorities said.

All ferry services in Shanghai had been cancelled since Wednesday morning, and drivers were told to drive under 60 kph (37 mph) on highways, local media reported.

Co-May made landfall in Shanghai at 4:40 p.m. (0840 GMT), with wind speeds similar to when the storm landed in Zhoushan earlier, at 23 metres per second (83 kph).

Rainfall of up to 100 mm – about a month’s worth – is expected within a six-hour period in the city, said municipal authorities, warning about potential waterlogging around the city centre.

While some parks and the zoo have closed, Shanghai’s Disneyland and Legoland remained open, with some rides suspended at Legoland due to weather conditions, the park said.

Airports at nearby cities Ningbo, Wenzhou and Hangzhou saw flight cancellations and diversions. As of Wednesday morning, more than 75% of the day’s flights at Zhoushan were cancelled.

Some train services in the region were temporarily suspended with others operated under restricted speeds, state media said.

Shanghai is rarely subject to direct hits from strong typhoons that generally make landfall further south in China. The most significant typhoon in recent years that landed directly in Shanghai was Bebinca last year, the most powerful tropical cyclone to hit China’s financial capital since 1949.

The arrival of Co-May coincided with a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday, about 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Shanghai. 

While China’s National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center said the tsunami was expected to have “disastrous impacts” on some parts of China’s coast, Shanghai’s municipal earthquake agency later discounted potentially “disastrous impacts.”

Although nearby coastal regions could see water levels rise by up to 180 cm in the evening, tidal waves around the city will not exceed warning levels, Shanghai’s marine forecasting centre said, according to state media reports.

Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Xiuhao Chen and Ryan Woo in Beijing; Editing by Tom Hogue, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Bernadette Baum

The travel money business operates online and through 220 bureaux inside Sainsbury’s stores

International News via Reuters:

British supermarket group Sainsbury’s has agreed to sell Sainsbury’s Bank’s travel money business to Fexco Group, it said on Wednesday, continuing its withdrawal from banking services.

Sainsbury’s strategy under CEO Simon Roberts is to focus on growing its core retail operation.

The travel money business operates online and through 220 bureaux inside Sainsbury’s stores. It has about 10% of the UK market.

Sainsbury’s said Fexco will provide foreign exchange services under the Sainsbury’s brand with Sainsbury’s receiving an ongoing share of revenue and rental income. No financial details were disclosed.

The deal follows last year’s sale of Sainsbury’s Bank’s personal loan, credit card and retail deposit portfolios to NatWest Group, the disposal of its cash machines business to NoteMachine and the sale of the Argos Financial Services cards portfolio to NewDay Group.

The supermarket group said Sainsbury’s Bank has also struck a deal for Allianz UK to offer replacement car and home insurance policies to existing Sainsbury’s Bank customers.

Earlier this month, Sainsbury’s, Britain’s second largest grocer after Tesco, reported better-than-expected first quarter sales. Its shares are up 11% so far this year.

Reporting by James Davey; editing by Sarah Young, Kirsten Donovan

Wall Street expects the company to post a 4.2% rise in revenue for the April-June quarter to $89.34 billion

International News via Reuters:

Long seen as the safest Big Tech bet, Apple is heading into Thursday’s earnings with its business facing pressure from U.S. tariffs, tough competition in China and a high-stakes artificial intelligence race it has been late to enter.

Wall Street expects the company to post a 4.2% rise in revenue for the April-June quarter to $89.34 billion. Still, the focus will be on how Apple plans to adjust to a landscape that has turned its global supply chain, long a strength, into a potential liability.

U.S. President Donald Trump has targeted the consumer electronics giant for its reliance on overseas manufacturing, threatening 25% tariffs on foreign-made iPhones. To limit the damage, Apple shifted production of U.S.-bound iPhones to India, further drawing Trump’s ire.

The total volume of Indian-made smartphones jumped 240% in the second quarter, largely driven by Apple’s supply chain shift, according to research firm Canalys.

Analysts and investors are now expecting the strategy to help Apple limit the hit from tariffs to well below $900 million it had estimated in May.

IPhones are “a very high-profile product that both the Chinese and the U.S. governments understand they have a lever over,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said. “So until the tariff rates get settled, Apple is very much at risk of being impacted by the current trade dispute.”

Analysts also said Apple, like many other firms, potentially overestimated tariff costs to leave room for an earnings beat. 

“Most companies we follow have made conservative assumptions by overestimating tariff costs as the goal of management is generally to beat its own guidance,” said Jamie Meyers, senior analyst at Apple shareholder Laffer Tengler Investments. 

Sales of iPhones are expected to have risen 2.2% in Apple’s fiscal third quarter, according to data compiled by LSEG, helped by an improvement in demand in China, Apple’s third-largest market. In the fiscal second quarter, this increased 1.9%.

Counterpoint Research data shows iPhone sales in the world’s largest smartphone market jumped 8% in the quarter, fueled by steep discounts during the 618 shopping festival, government-backed trade-in subsidies and targeted iPhone 16 Pro promotions.

Sales of Apple’s other devices are expected to have slowed in the April-June period, while revenue from services – its fastest-growing segment in recent years – is likely to rise to 10.7%. In the January-March period, services revenue grew 11.6%.

Doubts still remain over Apple’s prospects in China, where domestic companies including Honor are rolling out smartphones packed with AI features such as generative AI photo editors. 

Apple’s cautious approach to AI has fueled concerns it is sitting out what could be the industry’s biggest growth wave in decades. The company was slow to roll out its Apple Intelligence suite, including a ChatGPT integration, while a long-awaited AI upgrade to Siri has been delayed until next year.

Reporting by Akash Sriram and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni, Sayantani Ghosh and Anil D’Silva

The shallow earthquake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region

International News via Reuters:

A powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula triggered tsunami waves of up to 5 metres (16 feet) nearby and sparked evacuation orders as far away as Hawaii and across the Pacific on Wednesday.

The shallow earthquake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan’s eastern seaboard – devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 – was ordered to evacuate.

A resident in the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky said the shaking went on for several minutes.

“I decided to leave the building,” said Yaroslav, 25. “It felt like the walls could collapse any moment. The shaking lasted continuously for at least 3 minutes.”

Video footage released by the region’s health ministry showed a team of medics in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky performing surgery as the tremors shook their equipment and the floor beneath them.

Tsunami waves struck parts of Kamchatka, partially flooding the port and a fish processing plant in the town of Severo-Kurilsk and sweeping vessels from their moorings, regional officials and Russia’s emergency ministry said.

Verified drone footage showed the town’s entire shoreline was submerged, with taller buildings and some storage facilities surrounded by water, which was seen pouring back into the sea.

“Today’s earthquake was serious and the strongest in decades of tremors,” Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app. Russian scientists said it was the most powerful to hit the region since 1952.

In Hawaii, waves of up to 1.7 metres (5.5 feet) impacted the islands before the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reduced its warning level for the state around 0850 GMT, saying no major tsunami was expected.

Coastal residents were earlier told to get to high ground or the fourth floor or above of buildings, and the U.S. Coast Guard ordered ships out of harbours.

Flights out of Honolulu airport resumed later, the transportation department said, while the main airport in Maui remained closed with passengers sheltering in the terminal.

Tsunami waves of nearly half a metre were observed as far as California, with smaller ones reaching Canada’s province of British Columbia.

WARNINGS ACROSS THE PACIFIC

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was shallow at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles), and centred 119 km (74 miles) east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of 165,000. 

Tsunami alarms sounded in coastal towns across Japan’s Pacific coast and evacuation orders were issued for tens of thousands of people. 

Workers evacuated the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, where a meltdown following the 2011 tsunami caused a radioactive disaster, operator TEPCO said. 

Footage on public broadcaster NHK showed scores of people on the northern island of Hokkaido on the roof of a building, sheltering under tents from the sun, as fishing boats left harbours to avoid any damage from incoming waves. 

Broadcaster Asahi TV reported a 58-year-old woman died when her car fell off a cliff while she was evacuating in central Japan’s Mie prefecture.

Automaker Nissan Motor suspended operations at some factories in Japan to ensure employee safety, Kyodo news agency reported.

Three tsunami waves had been recorded in Japan, the largest of 1.3 metres (4.3 feet), officials said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said no injuries or damage had been reported, and there were no irregularities at any nuclear plants.

Tsunami waves of 1 to 3 metres (3-9 feet) can be fatal for people who are swept away, said NHK.

The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said waves of more than 3 metres were possible along some coasts of Russia, the northern Hawaiian islands and Ecuador, while waves of 1-3 metres were possible in countries including Japan, Hawaii, Chile and the Solomon Islands.

‘RING OF FIRE’

Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Services said on Telegram that a kindergarten was damaged but most buildings withstood the quake. No serious injuries or fatalities have been reported.

Several people in Kamchatka sought medical assistance following the quake, Oleg Melnikov, regional health minister, told Russia’s TASS state news agency.

In Severo-Kurilsk in the northern Kuril islands, south of Kamchatka, tsunami waves exceeded 3 metres, with the largest up to 5 metres, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

Alexander Ovsyannikov, the town’s mayor, urged residents to assess damage to their homes and not to use gas stove heating until inspections had been carried out.

Kamchatka and Russia’s Far East sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

“However, due to certain characteristics of the epicentre, the shaking intensity was not as high … as one might expect from such a magnitude,” said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Service, on Telegram. 

“Aftershocks are currently ongoing … Their intensity will remain fairly high. However, stronger tremors are not expected in the near future. The situation is under control.”

Reporting by Anusha Shah Nilutpal Timsina, Mrinmay Dey, Shivani Tanna and Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Satoshi Sugiyama, Chang-Ran Kim and John Geddie in Tokyo, Nur-Azna Sanusiin Singapore and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Saad Sayeed; Editing by Stephen Coates, Michael Perry and Hugh Lawson