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No away supporters will be allowed to attend Aston Villa's home Europa League clash with Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv on November 6 after police raised public safety concerns about potential protests, the Premier League club said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The move comes after there were protests at the Israel national team's World Cup qualifiers against Norway and Italy, with police using tear gas on protesters and pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Osloand Udine.

Villa said they were following instructions from the Safety Advisory Group (SAG), who are responsible for issuing safety certificates for games at Villa Park, based on a number of physical and safety factors, according to Reuters.

Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley, founding guitarist for the American rock band KISS, has died aged 74, his family announced in a statement reported in US media, BBC reported.

Frehley died surrounded by family, who said they were "completely devastated and heartbroken".

"We were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth," the statement said. 

The guitarist was known for his "Spaceman" persona, from the days when KISS was founded with the original line-up of Paul Stanley on vocals and rhythm guitar, Gene Simmons on vocals and bass guitar, Frehley, on lead guitar and vocals and Peter Criss on drums and vocals, according to BBC.

Chinese state operatives present a daily national security threat to the UK, the head of MI5 Sir Ken McCallum has said, BBC reported.

In a speech, he said MI5 had intervened operationally to disrupt Chinese activity of national security concern in the past week.

Addressing a row over the collapse of a case involving alleged spying on behalf of China in the UK, Sir Ken said the alleged activity was disrupted by MI5 and that it was "frustrating when prosecutions fall through".

The government and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are facing questions over the collapse of the case, according to BBC.

Prosecutors in Bangladesh have demanded that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina be put to death over a deadly crackdown on student-led protests last year that ousted her from power, BBC reported.

Hasina, who has fled to India, is on trial for crimes against humanity. According to a leaked audio clip, she ordered security forces to "use lethal weapons" against protesters. She denies the charges.

Up to 1,400 people were killed in weeks of unrest that ended Hasina's 15-year rule. It was the worst violence Bangladesh had seen since its 1971 war of independence, according to BBC.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday, as Trump weighs whether to arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep into Russia, BBC reported.

Their meeting comes a day after Trump said "great progress" was made during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the pair agreeing to face-to-face talks in Hungary.

Trump said the call, the first with Putin since mid-August, was "very productive", adding that teams from Washington and Moscow will meet next week, according to BBC.

From ground zero of the Sept 8-9 GenZ protests, a sensitive piece of news is spreading.

Per reports, government authorities are working to do away with the remains of hundreds of vehicles that went up in flames in Singhadurbar, courtesy of some elements that targeted vital organs of the state, private businesses and major media outlets on Sept 9, a day after the killing of GenZ protesters in police firing.

In fact, the Mechanical Division under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport has already begun the large-scale removal and ‘management’ of the debris from Singhadurbar, the federal government secretariat.

After collecting the remains, the tentative plan is to prepare a field inspection report of the burned vehicles by involving police personnel and then inviting tender bids for selling it all as scrap.

This piece of information comes amid reports that ‘authorities concerned’ appear pretty much unconcerned when it comes to preserving evidence at the incident sites by restricting unauthorized entry and taking measures to weather-proof the sites for a credible and objective-oriented investigation that might help establish the identities of the elements involved and their true motives one day.

This kind of swift action on ground zero, rarely seen on other occasions except in the immediate aftermath of tragedies like the royal palace massacre, coincides with reports in some international media outlets that the acts of arson and vandalism seen in Nepal at that time may not have been ‘spontaneous’, that much planning may have gone into these acts. Quotes from police sources mentioned in the reports suggest that these acts might not have been based on conspiracy theories and/or figments of imagination.

Granted that state organs had become almost synonymous with corruption, nepotism, malgovernance, procrastination and a myriad other ills, and the citizenry had genuine grievances against them all. Still, key GenZ figures themselves had appealed against violence and have distanced themselves from the acts of arson and vandalism.

Who all were behind the acts that turned the infrastructure built with the taxpayer’s blood, sweat, toil, tears and hard-earned monies into ashes? What were the main motives of those elements?

A no-nonsense investigation is necessary to find answers to questions like these. Protection and preservation of the sites is a must for such a probe that may turn out to be a lengthy process. As for the large-scale removal of the debris that will be tantamount to destroying the evidence, the ‘Herculean task’ can wait, at least till the completion of the probe.

Kanchha Sherpa, the last surviving member of the first expedition to successfully scale the summit of Mount Everest, has died in the Nepali capital Kathmandu, aged 92, BBC reported.

His family said he had recently become unwell. 

Kanchha Sherpa was 19 when he accompanied the historic team led by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay to the top of the world's tallest mountain in 1953. 

He joined the 35-member expedition as a porter despite no prior mountaineering experience. On the arduous trek lasting more than two weeks, he carried food, tents and equipment up to base camp - and was one of three Sherpas to make it past an altitude of 8,000m (26,247ft), according to BBC.

India's foreign ministry has said it is "not aware" of a phone call in which US President Donald Trump claimed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil, BBC reported.

On Wednesday, Trump said his Indian counterpart had "assured me today" that it would end Russian oil imports, a move the US has pushed for in a bid to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine.

But asked about the call on Thursday, an Indian government spokesman cast doubt on Trump's account, saying he was "not aware of any conversation between the two leaders" taking place the previous day, according to BBC.