Ruthless Newcastle climb to third in EPL with 5-0 Palace thrashing

Newcastle United thumped Crystal Palace 5-0 at St James' Park to go third in the Premier League with a sixth consecutive win in all competitions as Jacob Murphy scored one goal and set up another, Reuters reported.

Newcastle have 59 points from 32 games and are five points clear of sixth-placed Chelsea in the race for Champions League qualification next season with the top five teams earning a place. Palace have 43 points and are 12th.

Harvey Barnes, Fabian Schar and Alexander Isak also scored for Newcastle, as the visitors were compounded by an own goal from defender Marc Guehi and a missed penalty by Eberechi Eze when they trailed 1-0.

Newcastle were again without manager Eddie Howe in the dugout as he continues to recover from pneumonia, but the performance would have been just the tonic as they scored some excellent goals and were ruthless in punishing Palace errors.

It was the first time Palace have failed to score in 13 Premier League fixtures, though remarkably their expected goals tally of 2.02 was better than that of Newcastle (1.39), according to Reuters.

Newcastle played with tenacity, pace and efficiency in the final third as they opened the scoring on 14 minutes through Murphy's thunderous shot from a tight angle that beat goalkeeper Dean Henderson high at his near post.

Inter reach Champions League semis after 2-2 draw with Bayern

Inter Milan reached the Champions League semifinals with a 4-3 aggregate win over Bayern Munich after an enthralling 2-2 draw in the second leg of their quarterfinal tie at the San Siro on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

The Italians will face Barcelona next, who they defeated at the semifinal stage in 2010 before going on to beat Bayern in the final to complete the treble, and Simone Inzaghi's side are still on course to repeat that feat this season.

It was a far from comfortable evening for Inter, but they did just enough in a pulsating clash between the top teams from Serie A and the Bundesliga.

Bayern, who lost the first leg 2-1 , were the more aggressive side from the off, with Yann Sommer saving a shot on the turn from Thomas Mueller early on.

A mistake by Nicolo Barella allowed Mueller to steal possession and play a pass into Michael Olise but Alessandro Bastoni nicked the ball off his toe before he could get a shot away, according to Reuters.

Inter came close with a Hakan Calhanoglu curled shot from distance but then needed some desperate defending after Konrad Laimer's pullback from the byline.

Arsenal cruise past lacklustre Real Madrid to reach semis

Arsenal snuffed out any chance of a famous Real Madrid comeback to reach the Champions League semi-finals after a 2-1 victory in the Bernabeu Stadium completed a 5-1 aggregate win on Wednesday.

Holders and 15-times winners Real never looked like clawing back a 3-0 deficit from last week's quarter-final first leg and when Bukayo Saka scored for the visitors in the 65th minute their fate was effectively sealed.

Vinicius Junior seized on a rare defensive slip a couple of minutes later to rouse the home crowd, but it proved too little too late as Carlo Ancelotti's side exited in feeble fashion.

Arsenal's superiority over the two legs was underlined in stoppage time as Gabriel Martinelli burst through to score.

They will face Paris St Germain in their first Champions League semi-final since 2009.

"I think it's such a special night for this club, it's a historic night for this club," said Arsenal's Declan Rice, whose two sublime free kicks last week put his side in control.

Telescope finds promising hints of life on distant planet

Scientists have found new but tentative evidence that a faraway world orbiting another star may be home to life, BBC reported.

A Cambridge team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms.

This is the second, and more promising, time chemicals associated with life have been detected in the planet's atmosphere by Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

But the team and independent astronomers stress that more data is needed to confirm these results.

The lead researcher, Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, told me at his lab at Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy that he hopes to obtain the clinching evidence soon, according to BBC.

"This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years."

16  injured in Makwanpur bus accident

At least 16 persons were injured when a commuter bus met with an accident  at Sunachuri in Manahari Rural Municipality-6 of Makwanpur along the East-West Highway this morning. 

According to the District Police Office, the incident occurred when the bus (Lu 2 Kha 599) en route to Bhairahawa from Itahari fell some 10 meters down the road. 

The injured were rescued and sent to Chitwan Hospital for treatment, office spokesperson Shyamu Aryal said. 

Bus driver Rakesh Chaudhary (29) of  Kolbi Municipality-11, Bara has been arrested for investigation into the incident.

 

 

Buddhist International Travel Mart to take place from May 24

The third edition of the Buddhist International Travel Mart is set to take place from May 24. 

In order to promote tourism, the Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA) is hosting the mart event. 

According to the NATTA official sources, the inaugural ceremony of the mart followed by international conference and exhibition will be held in Kathmandu on May 24-25 while Business-to-Business (B-2-B) session, farm trip, networking dinner and closing will take place in Lumbini on May 26. 

As many as 150 buyers (international hosted buyers) and more than 60 national and international sellers interested in international Buddhist tourism) are expected to participate in the event. 

More than 1,100 visitors from major Buddhist countries including India, China, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka will attend the mart. 

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) Deepak Raj Joshi expressed the belief that the mart would help Nepal make publicity of the international Buddhist pilgrimage tourism sector.

NATTA has also expressed its belief that the mart would prove to be a historical opportunity for the promotion of religious tourism, particularly Buddhist heritage of Nepal.

 

School Education Bill will be introduced through fast track: Minister Gurung

Minister for Communications and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung has said that the School Education Bill will be introduced soon through a fast track process to address education-related problems. 

Making public the decisions of the Council of Ministers meeting today, Minister Gurung, who is also the spokesperson of the Government, said that the government is sensitive to the problems of teachers and shared that the government is preparing to pass the bill soon. 

According to Minister Gurung, the decision of the Council of Ministers held on April 18 has shown that the government is sensitive to the demands raised by the Nepal Teachers Federation and has decided to recommend to the President to convene a session of the Federal Parliament for the purpose of passing the School Education Bill. 

Meanwhile, the government has called on the agitating teachers to return to their respective work stations, saying that it is an important time to enroll students in schools for the new academic session. 

The government has also urged the teachers to examine the answer sheets of the secondary education examination (SEE) and conduct the examination of Grade 12. 

On a different note, Minister Gurung shared that the government has held discussions to appoint Nepal Rastra Bank governor and assured that appointment will be made soon. 

He also clarified that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur had also held a discussion on the issue.

Likewise, the government has decided to form a negotiation team under the coordination of Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Finance to give in-principle consent to obtain a concessional loan of US$ 137 million for the third phase of the Rani Jamara Kulariya Irrigation Project. The project is being implemented with the financial assistance of the World Bank. The team will also finalize the financial agreement and project documents related to the loan.

Similarly, the government has decided to receive additional grant assistance of 1.8 million Swiss francs from the Government of Switzerland for small irrigation programs. 

The government has decided to prepare and submit an implementation action plan within seven days for the implementation of the report of the High-Level Economic Reform Suggestion Commission. 

Similarly, Minister Gurung shared that the government has decided to recommend to the President to convene a session of both houses of the Federal Parliament for April 25.

 

 

Maoist Center draws PM's attention on Sagarmatha Sambaad

The CPN (Maoist Center) has drawn the attention of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to prepare a common agenda and concept to be presented in the Sagarmatha Sambaad, an event the government is organizing with a focus on impact of climate change. 

The Department of Forest, Environment and Climate of the Maoist Center met PM Oli and welcomed the government's initiative to hold the international event on climate change from May 16-18.

PM Oli is also the Sambaad steering committee chair.

 A delegation led by Maoist Center’s Environment Department chief Madhav Sapkota met PM Oli at the latter's office, Singh Durbar today and urged to prepare a common program based on the initiatives made earlier.

On the occasion, PM Oli assured that the event should be made successful by all sides, rising above political party and favour. All political parties would cooperate to make Sambaad successful.

The Sagarmatha Sambaad announced previously was postponed for various reasons including COVID-19.