Melissa has now intensified into a Category 5 hurricane with 175 mph winds, making it the strongest storm on the planet this year. Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued across vulnerable coastal areas of Jamaica as the unprecedented storm barrels toward landfall in the coming hours. Up to 40 inches of rain, 13 feet of storm surge and 160 mph sustained winds will cause “extensive infrastructure damage” that will cut off communities, the National Hurricane Center warned. The storm has already killed seven people — three in Haiti, three in Jamaica and one in the Dominican Republic. View CNN’s Storm Tracker to follow Melissa’s projected path.

President Donald Trump held talks on Tuesday with Japan’s new conservative prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, on the second leg of his Asia tour. Takaichi heralded what she hoped would mark “a new golden age of the Japan-US alliance,” and Trump told her she would be “one of the great prime ministers.” The leaders signed a rare earths agreement following their bilateral meeting in Tokyo. Separately, the president has suggested he may meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week, saying he would “love to see” him. During his first term in office, Trump and Kim held a series of unprecedented meetings in 2018 and 2019 — and had an infamous handshake in the Korean Peninsula’s demilitarized zone.