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The CPN (Unified Socialist) has finalized the candidates for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor of various metropolis and sub-metropolis.

The 23rd meeting of the Central Secretariat held on Monday morning finalized the names of candidates for the local level elections slated for May 13.

According to party General Secretary Beduram Bhusal, Dhanraj Acharya has been chosen to contest for the post of mayor in Pokhara Metropolitan City and Mina Lama has been nominated to contest the post of mayor in Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City.

Likewise, Rameshwor Shrestha has been chosen to contest for the post of deputy mayor in Kathmandu Metropolitan City and Keshav Kumar Bista in Itahari Sub-Metropolitan City.

Similarly, Chin Bahadur Gurung and Jog Bahadur Magar have been nominated to contest for the post of deputy mayor in Butwal and Tulsipur Sub-Metropolitan Cities.

The ruling coalition has forged electoral alliances in metropolis and sub-metropolis for the local elections.

Five-time champions Mumbai Indians lost their eighth successive match by 36 runs to Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday, The Indian Express reported.

Skipper KL Rahul smashed his second hundred as he guided Lucknow Super Giants to 168 for 6 and then restricted MI to 132 for 8 in 20 overs.

Rahul’s 103 not out off 62 balls was laced with 12 fours and four sixes.

The second highest scorer was Manish Pandey with 22 as other batters failed to make significant contribution, according to The Indian Express.

For MI, Jasprit Bumrah was the best bowler with 1 for 31 in 4 overs while Kieron Pollard had best figures with 2 for 8 in two overs.

When MI batted, all the Lucknow bowlers chipped in with wickets but special performance came from Dushmantha Chameera who conceded only 14 runs in 4 overs, The Indian Express reported.

Student demonstrators surrounded the Sri Lankan Prime Minister's Residence here on Sunday, as the anti-government Galle Face protests reached its 16th day and the clamour for the President and Prime Minister to resign grew louder, PTI reported.

Thousands of Inter University Students' Federation (IUSF) supporters were seen sloganeering outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Wijerama Mawatha. Dozens were demonstrating from the parapet and boundary walls of the official residence - in images similar to that of a seize.

The agitators demanded both President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa resign. The slogans ranged from soft jibes to strait taunts. Some defaced the boundary walls with graffiti reading "Go home, Rajapaksa!"

Thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets since April 9, as the government ran out of money for vital imports; prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed and there are acute shortages in fuel, medicines and electricity supply.

The protests seemed to take a more belligerent turn on Sunday, a day after Prime Minister Mahinda dismissed calls for an interim government, according to PTI.

A defiant Mahinda on Saturday said: "What use of interim governments when people with varying policies can't see eye to eye? There has to be accord which is not possible. If there is a need for an interim government it should happen only under my leadership."

Mahinda reiterated that a unity government could be formed but only under his leadership.

Last week, the ruling dispensation reached out to the Opposition parties and protesters for talks, but all efforts were rebuffed as the agitators said they want the government to resign.

Meanwhile, the police over the weekend warned protesters from entering certain roads in Colombo, saying they have court orders. The students say no court sanctions have been made, PTI reported.

With an unprecedented third straight home defeat, Barcelona is unintentionally clearing the way for Real Madrid to clinch the Spanish league title, Associated Press reported.

Barcelona lost 1-0 to Rayo Vallecano on Sunday, marking the first time it lost three in a row at home in all competitions in the same season, and leaving leader Madrid just a point away from winning its second league title in three seasons. 

Madrid will have its first chance of lifting the trophy Saturday when it hosts Espanyol. Madrid is 15 points ahead of second-place Barcelona with five rounds to go. The Catalan club has the better head-to-head tiebreaker.

Fans at the Camp Nou stadium booed the team after the final whistle. 

“We have been struggling at home,” Barcelona captain Sergio Busquets said. “We’ve been conceding goals early and then it becomes difficult to recover. We are in a bad dynamic right now.”

Barcelona had won seven straight home matches in the league against Rayo, which scored the winner with a shot by Álvaro García after a long pass into the area in the seventh minute, according to the Associated Press.

Barcelona pressed forward the rest of the match but couldn’t capitalize on its several scoring chances.

The loss left Barcelona tied on points with third-place Sevilla and only two points ahead of Atlético Madrid in the final Champions League spot. Securing second place is also important as it guarantees a place in the lucrative Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia. 

“We are in a tough situation now,” Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández said. “We are still in the Champions League qualification zone, but we have been making it difficult on ourselves.”

Barcelona won at Real Sociedad on Thursday but was coming off defeats against Cádiz in the league and Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League. It hadn’t lost two in a row at home since 2003, and had lost three straight only once, between the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons, Associated Press reported.

It was the second straight win for Rayo after enduring a 13-game winless streak in the league. The Madrid club moved from 15th to 11th with the victory, its second this season against Barcelona. Rayo’s win on Thursday also came in the city of Barcelona, at Espanyol.

Only Bayern Munich had beaten Barcelona twice this season, in the group stage of the Champions League.

The result practically secured Rayo a spot in the first division next season.

The match was postponed from January. No other league games were played this weekend. Real Betis defeated Valencia on penalties on Saturday to win the Copa del Rey, according to the Associated Press.

Staying in the slipstream of Manchester City in the Premier League title race wasn’t Liverpool’s only cause for celebration following victory in another fast and furious Merseyside derby.

Liverpool’s 2-0 win at Anfield on Sunday also dumped Everton into the relegation zone, leaving its neighbor’s 68-year stay in England’s top flight in major doubt with a month left of the season, Associated Press reported.

Second-half goals by Andrew Robertson and Divock Origi were enough for Liverpool in a match that ended with the jubilant home fans singing “Going down, going down” to their rivals from across Stanley Park.

Completing a dismal day for Everton was relegation rival Burnley winning a second straight game since firing its long-serving manager Sean Dyche, 1-0 at home to Wolverhampton.

It left Everton in third-to-last place and two points below Burnley, which finally climbed out of the relegation zone.

Everton, which has been in the top division every year since the 1954-55 season, has played one game less than Burnley but has a tough run-in featuring games against Chelsea, Arsenal and in-form Brentford, according to the Associated Press.

More importantly for Liverpool, the team returned to being a point behind City with five games left in a title race that seems destined to go to the final weekend.

In other games, Chelsea scored in the 90th minute through Christian Pulisic to beat West Ham 1-0 and cement third place, five points clear of Arsenal in fourth. Brighton drew 2-2 at home to Southampton, Associated Press reported.

Before the caveats, it is only fair to acknowledge the scale of President Macron's achievement.

Not enough is being made of this, but this is the first time ever that a governing president of the Fifth Republic has been re-elected.

Yes, presidents have retained the Elysée before. But both François Mitterrand in 1988 and Jacques Chirac in 2002 were effectively in opposition in the period running up to the vote, BBC reported.

In both cases, actual government was - as a result of mid-term parliamentary elections - in the hands of the president's foes. Though in office, Mitterrand and Chirac were politically impotent - but that helped when the wheel turned again and they found themselves back in favour.

As for Charles de Gaulle's victory in 1965, he'd never been elected by the people in the first place.

So, Emmanuel Macron is the first president in modern times who, after running every aspect of foreign and domestic policy for a full term, has once again won the trust of the people.

When you consider France's longstanding relationship with government - which is essentially to cheer 'em in, then chuck 'em out at the first opportunity - this is no mean feat.

He has done it by two methods, the first of which bodes well for the next five years, the second less so, according to BBC.

The results suggest that hidden beneath the seething mass of social media caricatures - the arrogant Parisian rich, the angry provincial mob - there are millions of French people of the middling type who feel that Emmanuel Macron has not been at all a bad president.

These people appreciate that unemployment is no longer a political issue, largely because of Macron's reforms. They think his handling of Covid was competent, and they agree that pushing back the age of retirement is inevitable.

They also discern a leader who can more than hold his own on the international stage. They are glad there is someone at the Elysée with the stature to talk straight with Putin, even if it proved a fruitless endeavour.

And they reckon that under Macron France can aspire to take the lead in Europe, at a time when his vision of greater military and economic autonomy for the EU is looking more and more relevant. The contrast on this front with Marine Le Pen could not have been starker, BBC reported.

These people may not particularly like Emmanuel Macron - he's too different - but enough have come to respect him.

However, the second aspect of the Macron methodology is more problematic - and this is where the caveats come in. 

Five years ago, Macron made a brilliant gamble about the state of modern politics. 

By straddling the centre, he destroyed the old pairing of conservatives and social democrats, and using the powers implicit in De Gaulle's Fifth Republic, he installed a highly personalised and highly concentrated system of government from the Elysée.

Opposition was forced to the "extremes" of left and right, where he trusted they could never really pose a threat. So far he has been proved right, as this election shows, according to BBC.

The US secretaries of state and defense met Sunday night with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the highest-level visit to the country’s capital by an American delegation since the start of Russia’s invasion, Associated Press reported.

The meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which was confirmed by a senior Ukrainian official, came as Ukraine pressed the West for more powerful weapons against Russia’s campaign in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow’s forces sought to dislodge the last Ukrainian troops in the battered port of Mariupol.

“Yes, they’re meeting with the president. Let’s hope something will be decided on further help,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych told Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin on his YouTube show “Feygin Live.” The United States has not yet commented.

Before the session with Blinken and Austin, Zelenskyy said he was looking for the Americans to produce results, both in arms and security guarantees.

“You can’t come to us empty-handed today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,″ he said, according to the Associated Press.

Zelenskyy’s last face-to-face meeting with a top US official was Feb. 19 in Munich with Vice President Kamala Harris, five days before Russia’s invasion. While the West has funneled military equipment to Ukraine, Zelenskyy has stressed repeatedly that his country needs more heavy weapons, including long-range air defense systems and warplanes.

In an apparent boost for Ukraine, polling agencies said French President Emmanuel Macron would win reelection over far right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has faced questions about her ties to Moscow. The result was hailed by France’s allies in the European Union as a reassuring sign of stability and continued support for Ukraine. France has played a leading role in international efforts to punish Russia with sanctions and is supplying weapons systems to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy’s meeting with US officials took place as Ukrainians and Russians observed Orthodox Easter. Speaking from Kyiv’s ancient St. Sophia Cathedral, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, highlighted its significance to a nation wracked by nearly two months of war.

“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome death, and therefore Ukraine will surely win!” he said.

Still, the war cast a shadow over celebrations. In the northern village of Ivanivka, where Russian tanks still littered the roads, Olena Koptyl said “the Easter holiday doesn’t bring any joy. I’m crying a lot. We cannot forget how we lived.”

The Russian military reported hitting 423 Ukrainian targets overnight, including fortified positions and troop concentrations, while its warplanes destroyed 26 Ukrainian military sites, including an explosives factory and several artillery depots, Associated Press reported.

Since failing to capture Kyiv, the Russians have aimed to gain full control over the eastern industrial heartland, where Moscow-backed separatists controlled some territory before the war.

Russian forces launched fresh airstrikes on a Mariupol steel plant where an estimated 1,000 civilians are sheltering along with about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. The Azovstal steel mill where the defenders are holed up is the last corner of resistance in the city, otherwise occupied by the Russians.

Zelenskyy said he stressed the need to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, including from the steel plant, in a Sunday call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is scheduled to speak later with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. 

Arestovych, the Zelenskyy adviser, said Ukraine has proposed holding talks with Russia next to the sprawling steel mill. Arestovych said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia has not responded to the proposal that would include establishing humanitarian corridors and the exchange of Russian war prisoners for the fighters still in the plant.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to travel to Turkey on Monday and then Moscow and Kyiv. Zelenskyy said it was a mistake for Guterres to visit Russia before Ukraine. 

“Why? To hand over signals from Russia? What should we look for?” Zelenskyy said Saturday. “There are no corpses scattered on the Kutuzovsky Prospect,” he said, referring to one of Moscow’s main avenues.

Mariupol has endured fierce fighting since the start of the war because of its location on the Sea of Azov. Its capture would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, free up Russian troops to fight elsewhere, and allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, according to Associated Press.

More than 100,000 people — down from a prewar population of about 430,000 — are believed to remain in Mariupol with scant food, water or heat. Ukrainian authorities estimate over 20,000 civilians have been killed. Recent satellite images showed what appeared to be mass graves to the west and east of Mariupol.

Police have arrested two foreign nationals in possession of 7kg white heroin from the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), Kathmandu.

Police said that the drug was found from the suitcase of Kaputula Abhisarg of Zimbabwe, who had come to Kathmandu from Johannesburg, South Africa via Qarar Airways in the third week of April, during the security check.

Police said that they have also arrested an Indian National who had come to receive the drug.

The market price of the confiscated drug is Rs 140 million.