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A person died on the spot and another was injured when police opened fire at a mob trying to rob a ballot box at Sorungchhabise in Katari Municipality-10 of Udayapur district on Friday.

The deceased has been identified as local Nabin Katuwal (19). He was hit by a bullet in the chest.

Police said that Man Shrestha (13), who was staying in the house, was injured in the firing. 

 Meanwhile, police constable Bishnu Tamang was injured when the cadres of a political party pelted stones at the security personnel.

Katuwal was the nephew of Gaur Bahadur Katuwal, an independent of Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal.

Laxman Paudel, District Secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal, said that the police opened fire after a dispute ensued between the Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal cadres at the polling station.

Chief District Officer Birendra Kumar Yadav said that the police opened fire after a group of 50/60 persons tried to rob a ballot box.

It has been learnt that police fired eight rounds of bullets to disperse the mob.

Chhetra Bahadur Khadka from CPN-UML, Bal Bahadur Karki from Nepali Congress, Tek Narayan Shrestha from CPN (Unified Socialist) and Gaur Bahadur Katuwal from independent had filed candidacies for the post of ward chairman in Katari-10. 

United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has died, Emirati state news agency WAM reported. He was 73, Aljazeera reported.

“The Ministry of Presidential Affairs announced that there will be 40 days of official mourning with flags at half mast and three days closure of ministries and official entities at the federal and local levels and the private sector,” the agency wrote on Twitter on Friday.

Sheikh Khalifa had rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2014, with his brother, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (known as MBZ) seen as the de facto ruler and the decision-maker of major foreign policy decisions, such as joining a Saudi-led war in Yemen and spearheading an embargo on neighbouring Qatar in recent years.

“The UAE has lost its righteous son and leader of the ’empowerment phase’ and guardian of its blessed journey,” MBZ said on Twitter, praising Khalifa’s wisdom and generosity.

Under the constitution, Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, would act as president until the federal council which groups the rulers of the seven emirates meets within 30 days to elect a new president, according to Aljazeera.

Condolences started pouring in from Arab leaders, including Bahrain’s king, Egypt’s president and Iraq’s prime minister.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken conveyed his condolences on the death of Sheikh Khalifa, whom he described as “a true friend of the United States”.

“We deeply valued his support in building the extraordinary partnership our countries enjoy today. We mourn his passing, honour his legacy, and remain committed to our steadfast friendship and cooperation with the United Arab Emirates,” he said.

Sheikh Khalifa came to power in 2004 in the richest emirate Abu Dhabi and became the head of state. He is expected to be succeeded as ruler of Abu Dhabi by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed.

Abu Dhabi, which holds most of the Gulf state’s oil wealth, has held the presidency since the founding of the UAE federation by Sheikh Khalifa’s father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, in 1971, Aljazeera reported.

An unidentified person opened fire at Tatakhase polling station (Siddhakali Higher Secondary School) in Bhimsen Thapa Rural Municipality-2 of Gorkha during the local level elections on Friday.

Police said that an unidentified person opened fire when a dispute among the cadres of Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN-UML escalated and turned into a clash this afternoon.

Election Officer Khimananda Gautam said that an unidentified person opened fire and an investigation into the incident is underway.

He said that the incident occurred when 55 percent voters had cast their ballots and around 80 persons were in the voting line.

It has been learnt that Manisha Thapa (22) sustained a bullet injury to her leg.

Thapa is a staffer assigned to conduct the elections.

She has been taken to a hospital for treatment.

security has been beefed up in the area following the incident.

The Election Commission said that around 35 percent voters cast their votes across the country until 12 pm on Friday.

Voting is taking place in 21, 955 polling booths and 10, 756 polling stations of 753 local units.

The voting has been halted in Dolakha, Sarlahi, Saptari, Ramechhap, Parbat, Humla and Bajura owing to minor disputes, EC spokesperson Shalikram Sharma Paudel said.

At least 13 persons died and 12 others were injured in a jeep accident at Panchamul in Waling Municipality-14 of Syangja on Friday.

The identities of the deceased are yet to be ascertained.

According to Raju Paudel, Chief District Officer of Syangja, all the injured have been sent to Pokhara for treatment.

The District Police Office, Syangja said that the the jeep (Ga 2 Cha 3026) carrying voters was  heading towards the polling center in Waling from Sighre when the incident occurred. Police said that the four-wheeler fell some 150 meters down the road.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

A 113-year-old woman exercised her franchise during the local level elections in Sundar Haraincha of Morang district on Friday.

Maheshwara Adhikari cast her vote at the Panchayat Secondary School polling center in Sundar Haraincha-7 this morning.

Scientists on Thursday provided the first look at the "gentle giant" lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy - an image of a supermassive black hole that devours any matter within its huge gravitational pull but is currently on a bit of a diet, Reuters reported.

The black hole - called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* - is the second one ever to be imaged. The feat was accomplished by the same Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) international collaboration that in 2019 unveiled the first photo of a black hole - that one residing at the heart of a different galaxy.

University of Arizona astronomer Feryal Özel, at a news conference in Washington, hailed "the first direct image of the gentle giant in the center of our galaxy," showing a glowing ring of red, yellow and white surrounding a darker center.

Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius "A" star) possesses 4 million times the mass of our sun and is located about 26,000 light-years - the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) - from Earth, according to Reuters.

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astrophysicist Michael Johnson called Sagittarius A* "ravenous but inefficient," currently eating relatively little matter.

"If Sgr A* were a person, it would consume a single grain of rice every million years," Johnson said. It is putting out only a few hundred times the energy of the sun despite being much more massive.

Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravity so strong that not even light can escape, making viewing them extremely challenging. A black hole's event horizon is the point of no return beyond which anything - stars, planets, gas, dust and all forms of electromagnetic radiation - gets dragged into oblivion, Reuters reported.

The image was obtained using the EHT's global network of observatories working collectively to observe radio sources associated with black holes. It showed a ring of light - super-heated disrupted matter and radiation circling at tremendous speed at the edge of the event horizon - around a region of darkness representing the actual black hole. This is called the black hole's shadow or silhouette.

Imaging it was complicated by its dynamic environment including swirling gas around it - as Özel put it: "a source that burbled and gurgled as we looked at it."

"We love our black hole," Özel said.

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy that contains at least 100 billion stars. Viewed from above or below it resembles a spinning pinwheel, with our sun situated on one of the spiral arms and Sagittarius A* located at the center, according to Reuters.

At the age of 48, Lhakpa Sherpa has just climbed Mount Everest for the 10th time but all her life she has been rising to challenges and meeting them, BBC reported.

Her 10-time achievement, reported by her brother and confirmed by a Nepalese official, makes her the first woman to do so.

The Nepalese single mother was born in a cave, had no formal education and worked as a janitor. 

She last made the 8,848.86m (29,031.69ft) ascent in 2018.

"I felt like I'd reached my dream when I reached Everest's summit for the first time," she told the BBC ahead of Thursday's climb.

"I thought to myself, 'No more just being a housewife!'

"I felt like I'd changed Sherpa culture, the status of Sherpa women and Nepali women. I enjoyed being outside of my home and I wanted to share that feeling with all women."

Lhakpa was chosen by the BBC as one its 100 most inspirational and influential women for 2016.

News of her 10th summit was broken by her brother Mingma Gelu Sherpa, who said she had reached the top at 06:15 (00:30 GMT). Nepali tourism official Bhishma Kumar Bhattarai confirmed the report for Reuters news agency.

Speaking from base camp earlier, her youngest daughter Shiny, 15, told the BBC she was excited and keenly watching her mother's progress, according to BBC.

"I look up to my mum," she said. "She has achieved so much even though she had nothing."

However, Lhakpa's hard work and achievements have yet to translate into wealth and recognition. 

She began life in a village more than 4,000m (13,000ft) above sea level in the Makalu region of eastern Nepal. She is a member of the Sherpa ethnic group, descended from nomadic Tibetans, who are used to living in hostile high altitudes. 

"I was born in a cave," she said, breaking into laughter. "I don't even know my date of birth. My passport says I am 48."

"I remember having to walk for hours, sometimes carrying my brothers to school, only to be turned away when I got there. At the time, girls were not allowed to go to school."

Agriculture was the mainstay for her village, which had no electricity. What it did have was a certain magical neighbour. 

"I grew up right next to Everest," she recalled. "I could see it from my home. Everest continues to inspire and excite me."

Since the first conquest of the mountain in 1953, more and more people have tried to scale the peak every year. Those who do so inevitably hire Sherpa guides and porters. But some Sherpas, like Lhakpa, set out to become mountaineers in their own right. 

It was not an easy transition. Lhakpa's parents didn't back her, BBC reported.

"My mum said I would never get married," she told the BBC. "She warned me that I would become too masculine and undesirable. The villagers told me that it's a man's job and I would die if I tried it."

She brushed aside those concerns and made it to Everest's highest ridge in 2000. In 2003, she became the first woman to scale Everest three times - and more records followed.

During her 2003 climb, she was joined by her brother and sister, becoming the first three siblings simultaneously on an 8,000-metre-high mountain. The Guinness Book of World Records recognised the feat.

She then married US-based Romanian-born climber George Dijmarescu, and scaled the peak with him five times. 

After getting married she moved to the US, but the relationship ended in acrimonious divorce in 2015.

Lhakpa now lives in the US state of Connecticut with their two daughters. She also has a son from a previous relationship.

During her initial expeditions she used to plant the Nepali flag at the summit. This time, she was carrying the US flag.

But her achievements failed to attract media attention and sponsors. For many years she was living unrecognised, and working for minimum wage.

"My jobs included taking care of the elderly, house cleaning and dish washing," she said.

I didn't make much money. I couldn't afford to buy clothes or pay for haircuts. I just had to focus on taking care of my children and then hope I had enough to return to Everest."

But she maintained a passion for climbing. She went up twice as a guide, and on some occasions friends and family helped support her trips, according to BBC.

Mountaineering was "not very rewarding compared with the risks involved", she said, but she believes it helped her escape what otherwise would have been a mundane life in the village.

Financially, things began to change after she learned to speak English well. She gave interviews, and spoke at events.

She got a sponsor for her ninth scale of the summit. But this time, her 10th, she raised the money through crowdfunding.

Lhakpa always starts her trek with a customary prayer. Safety is her biggest priority.

More than 300 people have died while trying to scale Mount Everest, so Lhakpa and her team have to pass bodies preserved by ice.

"The mountain decides the weather," she said. "During bad weather I would just wait. We can't wrestle a mountain."

"Past 8,000m, I feel like a zombie," she said. "You can't eat and everything is frozen. You have to climb at night so that you can descend from the summit in the daylight. It's scary."

Climbers get very little time at the top. For Lhakpa, it is only five to 10 minutes - just enough time to take pictures and reflect on all the people who support her climbs. 

She has no plans to retire after this season. She wants to scale K2, the world's second-highest peak. She is also thinking of climbing Everest in the future with her son and daughters, because "mountain climbing is my passion and this is what I want to do." 

"I've had a challenging life," she added. "Mountains made me happy and relaxed. I will never give up. I want young women not to give up."