Nepal’s government reported that the August 26 flood destroyed 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, with damages and losses exceeding $2.7 billion, as Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle sought international funding to rebuild.

Nepal’s government said that the August 26 flood, dubbed the “Himalayan tsunami,” caused physical damage worth $1.8 billion and additional economic losses of more than $900 million, equivalent to about 10% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as it seeks international financing for reconstruction.

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle presented the estimates on Thursday at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Bangkok, on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

RELATED: Nepal River Surge Destroys 40 Homes, Leaves Five Missing

Wagle is seeking international funding for rebuilding and for measures to “avoid or mitigate the impact of future disasters.”

Nearly seven weeks passed between the disaster and Thursday’s accounting. The flood struck on August 26, and the assessment Wagle presented in Bangkok represents the government’s formal reckoning of the economic damage it must now confront.The floods left more than 1,500 people dead and 6,000 missing, causing severe destruction of essential infrastructure, hydropower projects, farmland, fish ponds, food stocks and agricultural infrastructure across the country.

Rebuilding at Higher Cost

Wagle said Nepal does not intend merely to “replace what was destroyed, but to build better,” with more resilient infrastructure. He said that approach will raise the cost of reconstruction to $5 billion.

The Minister also said Nepal, which he described as “the poorest country in Asia after Afghanistan,” has contributed very little to global warming because of its limited industrialization and low emissions, but “is bearing the worst consequences of climate change.”

Wagle appealed to the “ethical and moral responsibility of countries with greater resources” to support the most vulnerable and called for a model of “global solidarity and cooperation.” “It is not about blaming rich countries, but about making a joint call to action,” he said.

Glacier Collapse and Risk

The disaster originated high in the Himalayas. A glacial and rocky mass covering two square kilometers broke away from Langtang Lirung mountain at an altitude of 5,200 meters. The ensuing flood also swept into the Chinese region of Tibet.

The scale of the threat extends beyond a single event. A recent study in Scientific Reports warns that roughly 300,000 people in Nepal live in river channels susceptible to flooding. Construction in those vulnerable zones grew by almost 50 percent between 2016 and 2023, a pattern that multiplies the risk to communities as extreme weather becomes more frequent.

Nepal’s appeal arrives as climate-linked disasters mount across South Asia, a region where economies least responsible for global emissions face some of the steepest recovery costs. For a country that contributes a negligible share of greenhouse gases, the $5 billion reconstruction bill amounts to a burden imposed largely by forces beyond its control.

Operations at Chios Airport runway will be temporarily suspended from mid November 2026 to mid March 2027 due to upgrade of infrastructure works. According to an announcement by the Greek Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) suspension is scheduled from Sunday night, November 15, 2026 to March 15, 2027, due to works to extend, improve and upgrade […]

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• Harvard's endowment returned a five-year high of 27.1% in the 12 months to June 30, besting the S&P 500.
• The Ivy League college counted a $2.2 billion SpaceX stake as its top Q2 portfolio holding by far.
• Harvard's endowment grew to almost $68 billion after accounting for taxes, gifts, and distributions.

Harvard University delivered its best investment return in five years as its bet on SpaceX boosted its stock portfolio.

The elite college's endowment returned 27.1% in the fiscal year ended June 30, its annual financial report revealed on Thursday. That comfortably outpaced the benchmark S&P 500's 22.3% total return over the same period.

After accounting for taxes, distributions, and gifts, Harvard's endowment grew by $11 billion to nearly $68 billion.

Harvard Management Company's stake in Elon Musk's maker of Starship rockets, Starlink satellites, and AI chatbot Grok was worth $2.2 billion at the end of June, per its second-quarter portfolio disclosure.

SpaceX was its number-one holding, more than six times more valuable than its second-biggest position, a sub-$350 million stake in Taiwan Semiconductor.

Its next-largest positions — each worth over $150 million — were Cerebras, Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia. Its 19 holdings at the end of June were together worth about $4.3 billion, more than double the portfolio's $1.8 billion value three months earlier.

Harvard said the strong performance of its endowment, which is nearly 400 years old and comprises about 15,000 individual funds, helped it weather the "abrupt termination of federal research grants" by the Trump administration.

It's worth noting that 13-F portfolio disclosures are a snapshot of a fund's US stock holdings on a certain date. They don't include foreign-listed stocks, non-stock assets like bonds or real estate, private investments, or stocks sold short.

Harvard said that as of June 30, 14% of its endowment was invested in public equities, 29% in hedge funds, 46% in private equity, 4% in real estate, and the balance elsewhere.

Harvard declined to comment when contacted by Business Insider.

SpaceX's valuation has whipsawed since the aerospace company went public on June 12. Its market capitalization topped $2.4 trillion on June 20, then tanked to $1.4 trillion by August 1, and has since rallied to around $2 trillion.

Musk's company posted a 92% year-on-year revenue jump for the quarter ended June, helping narrow its net loss from $1 billion to $541 million.

The world's richest man recently posted on X that he sees a path for SpaceX to be worth "orders of magnitude more than the current Earth economy," implying its stock could rise at least 6,000-fold to $12 quadrillion over time.

He later clarified that wasn't a "statement of extreme confidence," but he believes the probability of achieving that valuation is "not zero." On October 14, he said he expects SpaceX to be worth more than $100 trillion in the next 10 years.

Harvard is one of several shareholders to reveal a sizable stake in SpaceX. Google parent Alphabet reported a roughly 4% stake valued at $94 billion as of the end of June. Longtime Musk associate Peter Thiel disclosed a 3.2% position worth $73 billion held by his Founders Fund and related entities. AI chipmaker Nvidia has a $21 billion stake.

Paul Rankin’s account of a father-son camping trip and an exchange with an inscrutable stranger reads like it was plucked from an anthology of Southern gothic tales. It’s a tense, slightly spooky meditation on how private faith can grow wild and unruly, how isolation breeds suspicion, and how readily we project our fears.

The more I affirmed my faith, the more suspicious the man became, as if he hadn’t come to share the good news but to catch us in a damnable lie. As the interrogation persisted, I couldn’t help thinking of how Flannery O’Connor once described the South as a Christ-haunted place. I love Jesus, but, good Lord, his ostensible followers can be irksome and even sinister at times. Clearly unconvinced by my profession of faith but out of ideas—or maybe just weary with the effort—the stranger finally walked the three steps back to his camp site.

For lack of a better idea, I relit the stove and was adjusting the flame when the man returned, holding one hand behind his back.

With a flourish he brought out a cross fashioned of two sticks and thin binding wire. This he presented to Fish, then added that he’d have a big surprise waiting in the morning. With that, he turned and walked away, into the woods and out of sight.

Images from New Zealand aerial survey of Nikumaroro in 1938 offer new clues over aviator’s disappearance

A New Zealand museum has released nearly 50 photos from a 1938 aerial survey of the island where Amelia Earhart is believed to have crash-landed, offering amateur sleuths new evidence to scour for traces of the pioneering aviator and her plane.

The black-and-white images were published by the Air Force Museum of New Zealand after renewed interest in one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century, spurred by a US expedition to the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro in search of new clues.

TOKYO — An unwelcome blast of US inflation is blowing across Asia’s markets. September’s hotter-than-expected price data revived concerns that the Federal Reserve will keep rates higher for longer, threatening fresh pressure on currencies, capital flows and economic growth across the region.

Last month’s 3.7% year-on-year increase in consumer prices didn’t just exceed forecasts. It ensured the Fed is on an even bigger collision course with both the bond market and US President Donald Trump’s White House. It’s arguably the last thing both Trump and US Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh wanted to see less than three weeks ahead of the mid-term elections.

The post Hot US inflation singes Asia as higher-for-longer Fed rates loom appeared first on Asia Times.

• Dr. Katie S. Davis is a clinical neuropsychologist who evaluates children for learning disorders.
• She said some parents are rushing to diagnose their children for normal kid behavior.
• She suggested some softer interventions before booking an evaluation appointment.

Over years of evaluating children for learning disorders, Dr. Katie S. Davis noticed an interesting phenomenon: Some parents seemed visibly disappointed when she told them their kids didn't meet the criteria for ADHD or autism.

"I found that those conversations can be more difficult to have than with a parent whose kid is really disabled and whose needs are very high," Davis, a clinical neuropsychologist and author of "Actually, You're Fine," told Business Insider.

Though she would try to reassure those parents that their concerns about their children's behavior were valid and worth addressing even without a formal diagnosis, "it's not as tangible or concrete as parents want, and they often leave the conversation feeling dissatisfied."

Parent-reported diagnoses of several childhood developmental and learning conditions have increased in recent years. For example, the estimated share of US children ages 3 to 17 with a current ADHD diagnosis rose from 8.6% in 2016 to 10.5% in 2023. Separately, a study of children ages 6 to 17 found parent-reported lifetime learning-disability diagnoses rose 16.4% over the same period.

While some argue that greater awareness of learning disabilities and disorders accounts for the increase, Davis doesn't feel that explains the full story. From what she's observed, ever-growing expectations for kids — and parents desperate for explanations for why their child is lagging behind — also play a role.

She said rushing to a diagnosis can have negative long-term implications for everyone.

"People don't think that ADHD means anything, people don't think dyslexia means anything," Davis said. "Then those people who are truly disabled by those conditions have enough battle to justify their need for accommodations and services."

Higher and higher expectations

In order to qualify for a diagnosis such as ADHD, symptoms must be present in at least two major settings, such as both at home and at school. For autism, they must be persistent across multiple contexts.

But some parents focus on how their child behaves in the classroom, in part due to ever-increasing expectations around academic success, Davis said.

"Doing well in school is no longer good — you have to be at the top of the pack," Davis said, noting that similar patterns have arisen in higher education settings with parents arguing for their teenagers' grades to be inflated. "Parents want excellence, and if it's not excellent, it's bad."

When worrying about their child's behavior, some parents zero in on their child's behavior in class while overlooking how their child compares to others, Davis said.

"If you're in a kindergarten classroom, probably all of the kids to some degree are going to have trouble sitting on the rug for 30 minutes at circle time," Davis said. Most will cluster in the middle of the bell curve, while some will get antsier earlier or later. The kids who consistently stand out compared to their peers are the ones who should probably be evaluated, Davis said.

Otherwise, "for nine kids out of 10, that sounds like a kid in an elementary school."

Labels are a double-edged sword

Whether they're diagnosed with ADHD or not, a child being hyperactive in class isn't a parent's fault. Still, parents can feel like they're personally responsible.

"There is an eagerness to medicalize the feelings of insecurity, because if it's due to a diagnosis, then it's not a knock on your decisions," Davis said.

Whether or not their child is formally diagnosed, Davis warned against treating it as a catch-all explanation for everything your child does.

"Despite our best intentions, if we put a label on the kid and the kid is aware of that label, they are given the message 'there is something wrong with how you are developing,'" she said. Even positive spins, like "ADHD is a superpower," can send a message to the kid that their life will be forever defined by struggle, she said.

It can also imply that symptoms like difficulty focusing or reading can't meaningfully improve with the right interventions.

"We all want to develop resilience in our children, to make them feel like they have agency and control and they're in charge of their own destinies," Davis said. "Especially when kids are very young and don't understand the fluidity of these labels, we could potentially be working against them."

Try softer interventions first

Davis wants to be clear: Diagnoses such as autism and ADHD are real. There are children who are unambiguously and significantly impaired by them in every setting, who need clear support academically and socially. "There are evidence-based interventions at our disposal that are enormously helpful," she said.

However, for parents who believe their child falls into some gray areas, Davis recommended trying a few things before booking an evaluation appointment. She compared it to a young child with a mild fever: A responsible pediatrician would guide parents through modest steps, such as taking a temperature and offering plenty of fluids, before rushing to the ER.

Instead of assuming your child might have autism if they struggle to make friends or always hang out alone at recess, Davis suggested first making other plans with their parents to set up playdates. You can also sign up your child for a karate class or call the school's teacher to see if they can intervene and help the kids play together more.

Alternatively, she said, if you immediately seek out a diagnosis and place your child into therapy and social skills groups, you could be taking away from more enriching social activities.

If a child continues to struggle, Davis recommended getting a neuropsychological assessment — a form of standardized test that is broader than getting an autism or ADHD evaluation.

While not perfect, she said neuropsychological assessments can measure a child's motor skills, sensory processing, attention, cognitive efficiency, language, memory, and social functioning. Their scores are typically compared with norms for peers of the same age.

More importantly, it helps parents know which interventions are the best. "If your kid perceives life to be very stressful or upsetting, they're not making it up. Let's talk about what we can do to support them better in that environment," Davis said. "But we don't need a diagnosis to do that."

Eve Livingston sensitively draws us into the worlds of two women who share a similar past: abusive partners who committed suicide. Through powerful scene‑setting, we’re there when each woman hears the news, and we feel the complex emotions these deaths provoke. This is a difficult, complicated subject—not often tackled. Livingston bravely shines a light on how, in these particular circumstances, suicide can bring both grief and relief.

Things started as they so often do: he was older, professionally successful in a similar field to Siri’s, and there was something “magnetic” about him. There was also, she came to realise, a darkness beneath the surface. A tragic bereavement in his past had left him struggling with his mental health, something which immediately evoked sympathy in Siri and made him seem a deeper and more sensitive person, qualities she was drawn to. At the beginning of their relationship, he would often turn up uninvited to her home or events she was attending, or bombard her with messages — behaviour she now views as stalking, but found flattering in those hazy early days of a new relationship.

Dutch Housing Minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan drew sharp criticism this week after defending priority access to scarce social housing for recognized refugees, arguing that many young Dutch first-time home seekers “can still live with their parents.”

In an interview with De Telegraaf, the D66 minister was asked why status holders — asylum seekers granted residence permits — should receive preference for social rental homes while Dutch “starters” face long waiting lists and delayed independence. She responded that “we see that a lot of starters can still, or are allowed to, live with their parents.”

Migrants get affordable housing before Dutch natives. When asked why migrants receive access to affordable housing before young Dutch people looking for a "starter" home, the Dutch housing minister said that many Dutch first-time home seekers "can still live with their parents." Mass migration contributed to 60% of the increase in housing demand in the Netherlands since 2015, yet Minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan still believes in putting migrants first. "For me, the fundamental principle is that anyone who is allowed to and wants to live in the Netherlands gets a roof over their head," she said. In the Netherlands, Dutch natives are increasingly relegated to living with their parents while migrants get to skip massive waiting lists and gain "emergency" access to cheap social housing. Follow: @RMXnews

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 14, 2026

Dutch commentator and activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek wrote on X that the policy amounted to “systemic racism.”

“And not just the ‘new’ newcomers. A 25-year-old Syrian who came here with his parents years ago jumps the queue for a home when he decides he wants to live on his own. Meaning a 25-year-old white Dutch guy can forget about getting his own place and ends up on waiting lists for 10+ years,” she wrote, adding: “Putting the interests of foreigners above the interests of the native population needs to end.”

Talking about systemic racism: Young Dutch people can barely find a place to live, because migration drove 60% of the housing demand since 2015, regular prices are insane, and migrants get PRIORITY for the affordable social housing. And not just the “new” newcomers. A 25-year-old Syrian who came here with his parents years ago jumps the queue for a home when he decides he wants to live on his own. Meaning a 25 year-old white Dutch guy can forget about getting his own place and ends up on waiting lists for 10+ years. But according to our minister of housing that’s fine because they can just continue to “live with their parents.” Putting the interests of foreigners above the interests of the native population, needs to end. That’s why with the @SaveEuropeAct, apart from demanding closed borders and Remigration, we also demand 
Removing social welfare incentives and benefits that function as pull factors for migration.

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) October 13, 2026

Boekholt-O’Sullivan, an Irish-born former lieutenant general in the Dutch Air Force who took office earlier this year, claims that anyone who wants to live in the Netherlands should get a roof but does not address the major housing crisis brought on by mass immigration.

“For me, the fundamental principle is that anyone who is allowed to and wants to live in the Netherlands gets a roof over their head,” she said. She noted that status holders typically leave asylum reception centers and argued that alternatives such as remaining in centers, homelessness, hotels or cruise ships were unacceptable, so priority allocation should continue until other solutions exist.

The remarks landed amid fresh data underscoring migration’s outsized role in the Netherlands’ housing crunch. A report released this week by the Economic Institute for Construction (EIB) found that migration accounted for about 60 percent of additional housing demand between 2015 and 2024. Migrants who arrived in that period occupied roughly 435,000 homes by 2024, out of nearly 700,000 homes added to the stock.

In addition, data shows that migrants occupy 44 percent of the 2.2 million social housing units in the country.

The 44 percent figure of social housing units occupied by first or second-generation immigrants has doubled from 22 percent in 2000, and is forecast to rise to 51 percent by 2030.

A total of 92 percent of Syrian first-generation immigrants reside in social housing. In addition, 90 percent of those born in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Eritrea reside in social housing.

Asylum-related migration contributes disproportionately to lasting demand because status holders remain permanently at high rates, unlike many labor or student migrants who leave within a decade.

Critics said the minister’s comments minimized the burdens on young Dutch adults who have already spent years on waiting lists for social housing or who face high private rents and purchase prices that lock them out of independent living.

Social housing waiting lists in major cities often stretch many years; priority rules for status holders allow some recent arrivals to bypass ordinary queues. Dutch population growth in recent years has been driven almost entirely by net migration, amplifying pressure on an already constrained housing market marked by strict planning rules, nitrogen regulations and slow construction.

The latest debate about Dutch housing policy and mass immigration is only one aspect of the massive burden foreigners have been on Dutch society, which shows that Dutch taxpayers have spent €400 billion on migrants between 1995 and 2019.

The landmark study, entitled “Borderless Welfare State: The Consequences of Immigration on Public Finances,” shows that net costs of immigration to the Dutch public sector over the period 1995-2019 were an astounding €400 billion, averaging €17 billion a year, with a peak of €32 billion in 2016 due to the 2015 refugee crisis.

However, this is far from the total figure. Since 2019, Dutch taxpayers have paid tens of billions more, with no end in sight.

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