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Flash floods and landslides tore through a stretch of the Nepal-China border on Wednesday, and Nepali officials warned of loss on a huge scale. Hundreds of people are dead or unaccounted for, and Chinese state media has reported significant casualties on its own side of the frontier.

Nepal's foreign minister said an earthquake was reported shortly before the ground moved, but the latest USGS analysis found no seismic event at all. Rainfall or melting ice destabilising the slope is now the leading theory, with a chain reaction of collapses following the first slide.

Meta agreed Wednesday to pay up to $18 billion and rebuild parts of Instagram and Facebook, ending a trial in Oakland that nearly every state had joined. Forty-eight states, Washington DC and three US territories signed on, making this the largest sum Meta has ever paid over harm to children.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified days earlier that only 1.8% of teens used the "Take a Break" tool, despite blogging that over 90% kept it on. Plaintiff states had been seeking roughly $200 billion, and a California judge must still approve the deal before the mandated changes take effect.

ICE made 49,571 arrests in July, the highest monthly figure of Trump's second term and 15% above June's own record of 43,021. Averaging 1,599 people a day, more than half of those arrests came from just four states: Texas, Florida, California and Georgia.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has traded his predecessor's televised raids for a quieter method, picking people up at airports, ICE check-ins and immigration courthouses. Researchers at the Deportation Data Project credit that shift for the surge, which also includes the first Haitians detained after their protected status was revoked.

Commander Mazloum Abdi announced the official dissolution of the SDF, the Kurdish-led militia that once held a de facto autonomous zone across roughly a quarter of Syria. Fighters are now being folded into the national army after losing most of that territory in a January government offensive, with civilian institutions handed back to the state.

President Mamadi Doumbouya dismissed 173 military personnel for desertion by decree read out on state television, offering no explanation of the circumstances. Among them is Colonel Michel Lamah of the elite Special Forces Group, the unit Doumbouya himself commanded when it toppled Alpha Condé in the 2021 coup.

A Peruvian court convicted four men of murder-for-hire in the 2023 killing of Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, handing down terms of 15 to 35 years. Inuma, 50, was shot dead travelling by boat as he returned from a national meeting of environmental and land defenders.

A federal judge in Boston lifted her own order barring the Postal Service from carrying out Trump's executive order limiting mail voting in November. Judge Indira Talwani said the Supreme Court had compelled her, while still calling the order likely unconstitutional and warning of chaos at the polls.

The Army will site nuclear microreactors at five installations from New York to Texas, splitting up to $2.2 billion among five companies over five years. No microreactor currently feeds the US commercial grid, and the Army expects more than 20 of them running as power independent of civilian utilities.

The US Treasury sanctioned the UK-based group on Wednesday, accusing it of supporting numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020. Supporting Palestine Action already carried criminal liability in Britain under 2025 anti-terror legislation, and co-founder Huda Ammori called the American designation beyond hypocritical.

Core PCE rose 3.3% year over year and 0.2% on the month, matching forecasts, while the headline figure ran hotter than expected at 3.7%. Personal income climbed 0.4% and spending 0.2%, and traders now put roughly one-in-three odds on a September move from the Fed.

Salesforce shares jumped 14% after hours on an expanded Anthropic partnership and a $2.6 billion gain on strategic investments. Revenue rose 11% and net income hit $3.53 billion, up 87%, with Marc Benioff using the quarter to rebut fears that AI is killing seat-based software.

Okta surged in extended trading as the spread of autonomous AI agents drove fresh demand for identity security, with revenue up 11% from $728 million. Net income reached $116 million, or 65 cents a share, and newly launched products accounted for 30% of total bookings in the quarter.

The FDA gave expedited approval to daraxonrasib, a daily pill that blocks a mutated protein fuelling more than 90% of pancreatic cancers. Revolution Medicines will sell it as Rasonque at about $39,800 a month, after a 500-patient trial nearly doubled survival time with fewer severe side effects than chemotherapy.

Anthropic has agreed to a $45 billion cloud arrangement with Nscale, anchored by 460 megawatts of new capacity in West Virginia. Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips will power the buildout, making this one of the largest single compute commitments any AI lab has ever put on paper.

The first large wave energy test site on the continental US coast is now open after clearing federal review and beginning operations. Approval is striking because the Trump administration has thrown up significant permitting hurdles for clean energy, and for offshore wind in particular.

Owners voted unanimously to approve the $9.612 billion sale of the Seahawks from Paul Allen's estate to a group led by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Seattle's price obliterates the $6.05 billion Commanders record, and Khosla must surrender his 3.1% stake in the 49ers before the deal can close.

The SEC approved penalties including a half-season coach suspension, a fine worth half the sport's annual budget, and the loss of league voting rights. Presidents and chancellors voted 15-0 with LSU abstaining, after former Ole Miss tight end Dae'Quan Wright cleared Browns waivers and joined LSU for a fifth year.

The sisters received a doubles wild card on Wednesday, setting up their ninth appearance together in the US Open draw. Fourteen-time major doubles champions as a pair, they reunited last week at the Cincinnati Open after nearly four years apart.

Newcastle completed a £52 million deal for the Manchester City midfielder, paying £48 million up front with a further £4 million in add-ons. Bruno Guimarães left for Arsenal and Sandro Tonali for Tottenham this summer, gutting a midfield the Spaniard is now expected to hold together.

Curry died Tuesday at his Toluca Lake home in Los Angeles, his longtime manager confirmed, after years of health struggles that followed a severe stroke in 2012. Frank-N-Furter made him immortal in a 1975 film that flopped on release before becoming a midnight ritual in roughly 175 American theaters.

Parton's Spotify plays rose 2,320% in America and more than 1,260% globally against her prior seven-day average, a day after her death at 80. "Jolene" climbed 1,225% domestically and "9 to 5" rose 1,030%, while Beyoncé paid tribute by calling her simply the barometer.

Peacock renewed "Love Island USA" for a ninth season, with Ariana Madix returning as host after a record-breaking Season 8. The show remains one of streaming's most reliable summer hits at a moment when reality TV is otherwise fragmenting.

What it is: Ukraine's most consequential weapon in 2026 isn't a missile or a drone. It's a battlefield management platform called Delta that ties sensors, drones, and human spotters into a single live map of the front.

The detail: Delta ingests feeds from reconnaissance drones, satellite imagery, radio intercepts, and troops in the field, then uses that data to identify Russian units and route strike drones to them within minutes. Commanders can watch a Russian armored column form up, assign targets to available FPV drones, and confirm hits — all from tablets miles behind the line. The result is a miles-wide "kill zone" any Russian formation has to cross to advance.

How it changes combat: Traditional targeting can involve layers of command, with reconnaissance passed upward before orders work their way back toward artillery or aircraft. Delta compresses that chain by putting battlefield information and available weapons into the same digital ecosystem. Smaller Ukrainian units can therefore identify opportunities and respond before a target moves, making speed itself a weapon against a force with greater numbers.

Why it matters: The system is credited with helping cut Russia's summer offensive to a near standstill despite Moscow's manpower and artillery advantages. Delta is a working demonstration that software-defined warfare — cheap drones plus smart targeting — can blunt a much larger conventional force. A lesson that will reshape doctrine well beyond Ukraine.

The bigger lesson: Militaries have spent decades buying increasingly sophisticated individual weapons, but Ukraine's experience suggests connecting cheaper systems may sometimes matter more than improving any single one. Delta turns commercially influenced drones, sensors, communications, and battlefield intelligence into a coordinated network, offering NATO planners a glimpse of how future armies could fight without relying exclusively on extraordinarily expensive platforms.

What to watch: How Delta evolves as Russia adapts its jamming and its own drone networks, and whether Ukraine can keep its software edge as the war grinds into another winter. The platform is now as strategically important as any physical weapon Kyiv fields.

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—The Five Minute Daily Team