KATHMANDU, Nepal — The death toll from a massive flash flood that tore through Nepal’s northern border region with Tibet climbed to at least 95 on Wednesday, with nearly 400 people, including three U.S. nationals, still listed as missing, according to Nepali authorities.

Nepal Police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle confirmed the rising toll to multiple news outlets Wednesday. “So far 95 deaths have been reported,” Kafle said, according to Al Jazeera, adding that 28 police personnel were also among those unaccounted for. Nepal’s prime minister’s office separately confirmed the death toll of 95, though officials had not yet released information regarding the nationalities of the victims, according to CBS News.

The scale of the missing has drawn significant international attention given the large number of foreign tourists caught in the disaster. According to the Nepal Tourism Board, 384 travelers were reported missing as of Wednesday, including 291 foreign nationals from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Malaysia, according to Al Jazeera. CBS News reported that at least three U.S. nationals were among 341 foreigners listed as missing, citing information gathered from tour companies operating in the affected region.

The disaster’s origins trace back to a sequence of natural events that unfolded within minutes of each other early Wednesday morning. According to CNN, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 4.4 earthquake along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu, at 8:37 a.m. local time. Around the same time, what CNN described as an avalanche of ice and rock, more accurately characterized as a landslide, tore down a mountainside and into the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River.

Saswata Sanyal, of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, a regional climate organization, explained how that initial event triggered the broader catastrophe. The avalanche likely “blocked the (Bhotekoshi River) and released a sudden surge downstream,” Sanyal said, describing the chain reaction as a case of “cascading hazards,” in which events high in the icy mountains can rapidly translate into devastating flooding for towns and villages located far downstream.

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal offered a similar account of the disaster’s cause. According to CBS News, Khanal said the flash flood was caused by an earthquake that triggered a large landslide, which in turn blocked the Bhote Koshi River before releasing a catastrophic surge of water.

The destruction has been extensive and widespread across the affected region. A health worker in Rasuwa district, one of the hardest-hit areas, described the scene to The National. “There is devastation everywhere we look. The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away,” the health worker said. CBS News reported that videos broadcast by regional news outlets and shared widely on social media showed violent torrents of water surging through mountain valleys and passes, tearing down bridges and dams and sweeping away entire buildings in their path.

Nepal’s critical infrastructure has suffered significant damage as a result of the flooding. The Nepal Electricity Authority confirmed that six of its major hydropower and transmission facilities were damaged in the disaster, according to CBS News. The National separately reported that the flooding disrupted electricity supplies affecting more than 12% of Nepal’s total national hydropower generation capacity, underscoring the scale of infrastructure impact extending well beyond the immediate loss of life and missing persons.

Nepal Police spokesman Kafle acknowledged that officials remain uncertain about the full scope of the destruction as search and rescue operations continue. “We do not exactly know the extent of damage, but the flood is big, and it could have damaged many settlements,” Kafle told the French news agency AFP, according to CBS News.

Across the border in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, the disaster has similarly caused significant loss of life. According to CNN’s live coverage of the crisis, three people have been confirmed killed in Tibet, with an additional 265 people reported missing, according to Chinese authorities. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for “all-out” search and rescue efforts in response to the disaster, alongside calls for strengthening early warning systems to help prevent secondary disasters as recovery efforts continue, according to The National.

Officials in Nepal have cautioned that the confirmed death toll is likely to continue rising as recovery operations progress and the true scale of the disaster becomes clearer. According to CNN, authorities expect the toll to increase further once floodwaters recede and search teams are able to reach areas that remain inaccessible due to damaged roads, bridges and communication infrastructure throughout the affected mountainous border region.

The disaster adds to Nepal’s long and difficult history with monsoon-season flooding and landslide disasters, a recurring seasonal threat across the Himalayan nation. While Wednesday’s specific catastrophe was triggered by an earthquake-induced landslide rather than direct monsoon rainfall, Nepal has repeatedly faced major flooding disasters in recent years tied to its mountainous terrain, seasonal weather patterns and, according to climate researchers, an increasing frequency and severity of such events linked to broader climate change.

With search and rescue operations continuing on both sides of the Nepal-China border, and hundreds of people, including a significant number of foreign tourists, still unaccounted for, officials in both countries have indicated the coming days will remain critical for locating survivors and beginning to assess the full human and infrastructure toll of the disaster. International governments, including the United States, United Kingdom, India and Malaysia, are expected to continue closely monitoring the search efforts given the number of their citizens reported among the missing, as Nepali and Chinese authorities work to restore access to the remote, heavily damaged border region and provide clearer information regarding the fate of those still unaccounted for.

The Yorkshire firm made a statement to the Stock Exchange after Peel published its offer document

Developers Harworth has reiterated its opposition to a £583m takeover offer by major shareholder Peel Group.

Peel already holds nearly 30% of Harworth’s shares, and earlier this month launched a bid to buy the company’s remaining shares through a subsidiary. The company’s offer of 172.5 per share would see it spend around £417m for the 70% of the company it currently does not own.

Manchester-based Peel has now published its offer document, arguing that Rotherham-based Harworth’s cash flow profile is increasingly becoming less sustainable, driven partly by the company’s increasing administrative cost base and increasing net finance costs.

It wants Harworth to pivot toward strategic land activities and selective development, which it says has a lower cost base, and argues that Harworth’s strategy of developing land for data centres is “very early stage, highly speculative and unlikely to convert to cash sales or deliver the contribution required to improve the overall returns of the business to an acceptable level within the short to medium term”.

Harworth’s board rejected the takeover bid when it was first announced and has now repeated its stance, saying that “the board is unanimous and unequivocal in its rejection of the offer which, in its view, fundamentally undervalues Harworth and its near and longer-term prospects.”

In a new statement to the Stock Exchange, Harworth said it would set out wider views on the offer by September 9, but in the meantime, it advised shareholders to do nothing on the offer.

Harworth originated as the property wing of UK Coal, and many of its earliest properties were former mining sites in the North and the Midlands. It currently has holdings of more than 15,000 acres across 100 sites, and specialises in developing industrial and logistics developments for sale. It recently said that announced plans to develop a second data centre, saying a deal to sell it could be worth more than the £106m it received for a data centre site sold to Microsoft in Leeds earlier this year.

DENVER – New product innovation abounded at the Newtopia Now tradeshow, held Aug. 18-20. Exhibitors ranged from startups not yet in the market to established brands promoting new concepts ready for market. But as one speaker noted, there is a wide divide between being consumer ready versus retail ready.

Several brands stood out at the show. For example, early-stage brand Lil’ Melts, Austin, Texas, showcased its beef tallow cooking cubes. The cubes are intended to melt quickly, require no scooping and simplify portioning for home cooks.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based startup Notchee introduced a dairy spread promoted as a clean label condiment featuring protein. The perishable spread comes in 5.5-oz glass jars in three varieties: original, garlic herb and date honey.

And GoodBelly from NextFoods, Boulder, Colo., a 20-year-old refrigerated probiotic drink brand debuted For a Clear Mind. The no-added-sugar beverage is formulated to support mental clarity through the gut-brain connection, the company said. It is formulated with L-theanine, green coffee extract, fruit polyphenols and postbiotics.   

While each innovation is unique, that’s not enough to make it in today’s marketplace, said Brian Gould, founder and chief executive officer of TruLife Distribution, Boca Raton, Fla. Retail readiness is becoming just as important as product innovation.

Having a great product is only the first step, Gould said. Retailers are evaluating businesses, not just products. Strong ingredients, attractive packaging and consumer interest are important, but buyers also assess whether a company can consistently deliver product, maintain margins, support demand and become a reliable long-term retail partner.

“Retailers evaluate the entire business behind the product,” Gould said. “Brands need to demonstrate not only what makes their product different, but why it belongs on that retailer’s shelf, who will buy it and how the business will support a successful launch.”

Retailers are evaluating businesses, not just products when considering bringing a new product into its stores.

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While emerging brands have more tools to develop products, build direct-to-consumer audiences and generate online sales, achieving sustainable retail growth requires a different level of preparation and infrastructure, Gould said. For international brands, the challenge is often even greater. Companies entering the US must adapt to different retailer expectations, regulatory requirements, pricing structures and distribution economics.

“Success in another market is valuable validation,” Gould said. “But the US retail ecosystem is unique. Strategies that work elsewhere often require significant localization and preparation before they can succeed here.”

The distinction highlights the difference between being consumer-ready and retail-ready.

“Some of our most productive conversations (at Newtopia Now) were not about whether we liked a product,” Gould said. “They were about what steps would make that product truly compelling to a major US retailer.”

For some brands, the steps may involve refining pricing or positioning. For others, it may include strengthening retail materials, improving operational capabilities or identifying the most appropriate retail channel.

“The goal is not simply to get products in front of more buyers,” Gould said. “It is to ensure the right product reaches the right buyer at the right time.”

Some Bluesky users reported difficulty accessing the social media platform Wednesday, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, marking at least the third significant disruption the decentralized network has faced this month.

Downdetector posted on its official account on the social platform X that “user reports indicate problems with Bluesky since 11:51 AM EDT,” tagging the post with the hashtag #BlueskyDown and directing affected users to its outage-tracking page. The post had drawn more than 1,600 views within roughly the first hour of being published.

Independent status monitoring offered a somewhat measured picture of Wednesday’s disruption compared with some of Bluesky’s more severe recent outages. According to StatusGator, Bluesky was listed as operational as of a check conducted around noon UTC Wednesday, though the service had logged 35 user-submitted outage reports over the preceding 24-hour period, a notably elevated figure suggesting genuine, if not necessarily platform-wide, connectivity issues affecting at least some portion of Bluesky’s user base.

Wednesday’s reports add to a pattern of recurring instability that has affected Bluesky throughout August. The platform experienced a significant outage Aug. 16, when thousands of users across the United States and other countries, including the UK, Portugal and Canada, reported being unable to load feeds, log in or use the app at all. According to IBTimes UK, complaints on Downdetector began climbing sharply around 10:37 a.m. EDT that day, with reported issues surpassing 2,000 complaints within about an hour. According to Windows Report’s coverage of that same incident, Bluesky’s own status account identified the disruption as affecting accounts connected to a specific server component within its infrastructure, known as the suillus.us-west.host.bsky.network personal data server, suggesting the outage did not affect every account on the platform equally.

Just two days later, on Aug. 18, Bluesky confirmed a separate, day-long disruption was caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, commonly known as a DDoS attack, which flooded the platform’s servers with junk traffic specifically intended to overwhelm its infrastructure and knock the service offline. Bluesky confirmed the attack in a post acknowledging the incident had unfolded over the preceding 24 hours. “We have upgraded our defenses in response, and we continue to monitor the situation,” the company said, without disclosing further technical detail regarding the source or scale of the attack. A Bluesky spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from TechCrunch regarding the incident at the time.

An earlier disruption on Aug. 5 similarly affected Bluesky’s backend infrastructure. According to Windows Report, the company confirmed at the time that multiple instances of its Personal Data Server fleet, the distributed backend components that store and serve user data across Bluesky’s decentralized network, had gone down simultaneously, suggesting the issue stemmed from core platform infrastructure rather than isolated individual account problems. User reports on Downdetector spiked sharply during that incident as well, jumping from a normal baseline of roughly one report to 589 reports within about half an hour.

Bluesky’s decentralized architecture, built on what the company calls the AT Protocol, has occasionally raised questions among users about why a distributed system remains vulnerable to widespread outages in the first place. According to TechCrunch’s earlier reporting on a separate 2025 outage, the answer lies in how most users actually interact with the network in practice. While the underlying protocol is designed so that different organizations and communities can theoretically run their own independent infrastructure, including personal data servers and relays, the vast majority of Bluesky’s current user base still relies on the company’s own official app and centrally operated infrastructure, meaning problems affecting Bluesky’s own servers can still cause widespread disruption for most users, even though the platform’s underlying protocol is technically decentralized. Users who have set up and rely on independently operated infrastructure outside Bluesky’s own servers have generally remained unaffected during these company-side outages, according to TechCrunch.

The recurring nature of Bluesky’s outages this month has generated visible frustration among users, many of whom have questioned why similar disruptions have continued occurring in relatively close succession. According to Rolling Out’s coverage of the Aug. 16 outage specifically, most affected users at that time reported problems primarily with the platform’s mobile app rather than its browser-based version, with some users describing being repeatedly logged out of their accounts or experiencing the app working briefly before crashing again.

Given Wednesday’s more moderate spike in reports compared with the platform’s more severe mid-August incidents, the current disruption may reflect a more limited or regionally concentrated issue rather than a full-scale, company-wide outage comparable to the Aug. 16 and Aug. 18 incidents. Users experiencing difficulty accessing Bluesky Wednesday were generally advised by monitoring services to check the platform’s official status page directly, restart the app, or verify their own internet connection before assuming a broader, confirmed outage is underway.

As of this report, Bluesky had not issued a public statement specifically addressing Wednesday’s reported issues, and the underlying cause, if any beyond routine, isolated connectivity problems, remained unconfirmed. Given the platform’s documented pattern of recurring outages throughout August, including at least one confirmed DDoS attack and a separate backend infrastructure failure affecting its Personal Data Server fleet, users and industry observers are likely to continue closely monitoring whether Wednesday’s reports represent another isolated incident or the beginning of a further, more significant disruption to the platform’s service.

Available for over a year

“More Chinese companies are put out of business by other Chinese companies. Chinese companies are not put out of business because of Western companies, so this whole competition is not, from a Chinese guy’s mind, like a US-China competition. It’s more ‘how do I survive this gym?’ because it’s damn hard to keep staying alive at home. That in turn makes you very competitive in the rest of the world.”

Maura Fogarty speaks to Joe Ngai, Chairman of the China region for global consulting firm McKinsey.

He advises senior management at Chinese and multinational corporations in the region which gives him a unique insight into the world’s second-largest economy.

Having written numerous books and reports on China’s economic landscape, Ngai’s expertise has been recognised by accolades from the likes of Forbes China and Bloomberg.

In this interview, we hear his thoughts about how the Chinese market has changed in the 25 years since the country joined the World Trade Organisation, and on how AI is developing and managing tensions with US competitors.

Thank you to the Asia Business team for their help in making this programme.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, director Chloé Zhao, and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, head of the World Trade Organisation. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Maura Fogarty
Producers: Ben Cooper and Jaltson Akkanath Chummar
Editor: Damon Rose

Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

(Image: Joe Ngai. Credit: Getty)

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have arrived back in the United Kingdom, landing in Birmingham shortly before midday Wednesday just days after their office confirmed plans for the couple’s extended return, BBC News reported.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, along with their children, Archie and Lilibet, are believed to have flown into the country privately from California. A spokesman for the couple declined to comment on the arrival, telling the BBC only that “this is not something we would comment on.” According to a source who spoke with the BBC, there did not appear to be a police presence as Harry and his family left the airport.

The family is expected to base themselves at a private property outside London in the Cotswolds, according to the BBC. Archie and Lilibet have been enrolled in school, with the new academic term due to begin next week. Harry and Meghan will not resume official royal duties during their time in Britain, continuing instead as private, non-working members of the royal family, consistent with the arrangement they entered when they stepped back from senior royal roles in early 2020 before relocating to California that March.

King Charles III was informed of the couple’s return plans earlier this month. The family had visited the king at his Highgrove residence in July, though it is understood the planned move was not discussed during that visit. Prior to that July reunion, Harry and Meghan had not been in the UK together since attending Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022. The Prince and Princess of Wales have also been informed of the couple’s plans, according to the BBC.

The question of security arrangements for the Sussexes while in Britain has remained a significant point of debate since news of their return first broke. Harry lost a legal challenge last year over the level of security afforded to him and his family in the UK, after seeking to overturn a decision that had downgraded his security detail once he stopped serving as a working royal and relocated to the United States. It remains unclear what specific security provisions will be made for the family during their UK stay, or who will bear the cost of arranging them.

Following the announcement of the Sussexes’ intended return, a Home Office spokesperson addressed the broader security process without confirming specific arrangements for Harry’s family. The spokesperson said decisions regarding the security of royals are made by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, commonly known as Ravec, and characterized the UK government’s overall protective security system as “rigorous and proportionate.” Harry has previously said that concerns about safety have been a central factor preventing him from bringing his wife and children to Britain in the past.

The couple’s return also comes amid significant ongoing legal costs stemming from a separate case. Last month, Harry and six other public figures lost a High Court privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail and MailOnline. According to the BBC, the group faces paying up to £34.5 million in legal costs to Associated Newspapers, with the seven claimants required to pay an initial £9.54 million within seven days of the ruling.

Beyond the security and legal questions surrounding the family’s return, speculation has continued to build regarding what Harry and Meghan’s day-to-day life in Britain might actually look like. The BBC has separately reported that Meghan is in talks for a role in Netflix’s series “The Gentlemen,” which would mark her first significant acting role since her marriage to Harry. Sources close to the couple have not denied those reports.

The return also raises renewed questions about whether Harry’s relationship with his brother, Prince William, might improve now that the family is based in the same country for the first time in years. According to the BBC’s own reporting on the matter, however, William remains in no mood to forgive and forget, with the underlying hurt he feels toward Harry described as still lingering, suggesting any reconciliation between the two brothers is unlikely to happen quickly or easily despite their newfound geographic proximity.

Harry’s broader relationship with Britain has continued evolving in other respects as well. The duke recently stepped down from the board of an African wildlife charity, according to related BBC coverage, part of a broader recalibration of his public commitments as the family transitions into this new chapter based in the UK.

With Harry, Meghan and their children now physically back on British soil, attention is likely to shift toward how the family settles into their new life in the Cotswolds in the coming days, including how the unresolved security question is ultimately addressed, whether King Charles and the couple have any further private engagements planned, and whether Meghan’s reported talks over the Netflix acting role move any closer to a formal announcement now that the family has completed their relocation to Britain.