GLOBAL SNAPSHOT

Gene therapy boost

NEW YORK: US regulators yesterday approved a second gene therapy for a blood cancer, a one-time, custom-made treatment for aggressive lymphoma in adults. The Food and Drug Administration allowed sales of the treatment from Kite Pharma. It uses the same technology, called CAR-T, as the first gene therapy approved in the US in August, a treatment for childhood leukaemia. The treatment, called Yescarta, will cost $US373,000 ($475,000) per patient, according to drugmaker Gilead Sciences.

It’s grog talk

AMSTERDAM: A swift drink may help improve your foreign language skills, research suggests. The study looked at whether Dutch courage would boost people’s ability to speak a second language – or whether it would turn their words into Double Dutch. It looked at 50 native German speakers who were studying at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands and had recently picked up the local language. The group were given either an alcoholic or nonalcoholic drink and then held a conversation in their non-native language. Researchers found those who were slightly intoxicated had better pronunciation than their sober colleagues.

Fireworks tragedy

NEW DELHI: An explosion at an unlicensed firecracker factory killed at least eight workers and injured 20 others in eastern India on Wednesday, a day ahead of Hindu’s most popular Diwali festival. A police officer said the number of casualties was likely to go up because several people were feared trapped under the collapsed building in a town in Balasore district in Orissa state.

Climbers rescued

TOKYO: Four climbers, who went missing earlier this week on a snow-covered mountain in northern Japan, have been rescued by helicopter and taken to hospital. The four, two from Japan and two foreigners, were found without any lifethreatening injuries on Mt Asahidake, the highest peak on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Militants killed

MANILA: A top Malaysian militant is believed to be among 13 Islamic State group-linked militants killed in fighting overnight in Marawi city in the southern Philippines, a military spokesman said yesterday. Sporadic fighting continued even after President Rodrigo Duterte visited the battlescarred Islamic city on Tuesday and announced its liberation, sparking hopes that hundreds of thousands of residents could finally return home after being displaced for nearly five months.