What happened
A catastrophic mix of floodwater and mud crashed through Himalayan valleys in Nepal and China-administered Tibet yesterday, killing at least 273 people, officials said this morning. More than 1,300 people were reported missing, including 517 foreigners in Nepal and 260 foreigners in Tibet. The death toll is expected to rise as rescue teams reach areas cut off by washed-away roads and bridges and buried under up to 6 feet of mud. 

Who said what
“There are no human-made things, no human settlement left,” Sagar Pandey, CEO of a tourism operator that serves Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims who flock to the area, told Reuters. “Everything is just flat.” 

Scientists around the world are “trying to solve the mystery of what caused such a destructive flood,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “leading hypothesis” is that a “large piece of a glacier broke off and tumbled hundreds of feet into the valley below, where the ice was pulverized into water by the sheer velocity of the fall.” The impact of the “enormous chunk of ice — possibly a half-mile wide,” The New York Times said, registered as the “equivalent of a 5.2-magnitude earthquake and crushed the ice into a fast-moving mix of water, ice and rock that pulverized everything in its path.”

What next?
Searchers are using helicopters to seek out survivors and drop supplies to hard-hit areas.

What happened
The Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved a first-of-its-kind drug for advanced pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease and among the hardest to treat. The FDA’s expedited approval of daraxonrasib, a daily pill developed by Revolution Medicines and sold as Rasonque, followed a clinical trial in which patients on the drug lived a median 13.2 months, twice as long as those who underwent chemotherapy, and with fewer side effects. “Some patients who have gotten the drug through clinical trials have lived for years,” The New York Times said

Who said what
Daraxonrasib has “electrified cancer specialists and patients,” the Times said. It’s “not a cure, but it is the first treatment to substantially extend the lives of patients” with a disease long considered among “the most hopeless in medicine.” Nearly all pancreatic tumors are fueled by a mutated cellular protein, KRAS, that’s stubbornly resistant to interventions. Daraxonrasib “uses what’s essentially a molecular glue to bind with multiple KRAS subtypes” and shut them down, The Associated Press said. Revolution is “studying its technology for several other forms of cancer, including lung cancer.” 

What next?
Revolution said Rasonque is “now available in the United States at $39,800 for a 30-day ​supply,” Reuters said. The “vast majority of the cost is expected to be covered through insurance,” the Times said.

A powerful, highly addictive stimulant is wreaking havoc in Bangladesh. Authorities have struggled to crack down on yaba (“crazy pill” in Thai), also known as Nazi speed. Their efforts are bearing some fruit, but tackling the widespread use of the drug, and the ensuing addiction crisis, remains an uphill battle.

Yaba contains a methamphetamine, and users generally crush and smoke the pills, or swallow them whole. The drug increases alertness and energy and raises heart rate and blood pressure. Heavy use can lead to paranoia, psychosis, seizures, cardiovascular problems and even death.

Yaba is “pushing thousands into addiction” in Bangladesh, said The Telegraph. The tablets, which blend the methamphetamine with caffeine and other adulterants, are particularly common in South and Southeast Asia.

Bangladesh has become a leading destination and market for yaba because of its geographic proximity to Myanmar, where production is particularly concentrated. Rebel militias there are increasingly using yaba and crystal meth as “partial payment for smuggled Bangladeshi goods,” said Dhaka’s The Daily Star.

Since 2006, yaba has been a common escape for the poor from the realities of the “daily drudgery that makes life so hard for so many of Bangladesh’s 178 million people,” said The Telegraph. So there’s “little to dull the allure” of the drug.

Bangladeshi officials have been fighting for years to stamp out the yaba trade. However, drug lords are still able to “churn out” millions of the pills at a “relentless” pace from camps in the jungle borderlands of Myanmar, said The Telegraph.