Submit your Article

Nepal Student Union, the student wing of ruling Nepali Congress, and part-time professors opened the padlocks of the Tribhuvan University Vice Chancellor's office.

Nepal Student Union opened the padlock on Friday while the part-time professors on Sunday, ANNFSU Tribhuvan University In-Charge Madan Bista said.

The TU's talks team and part-time professors struggle committee signed a six-point agreement to open the padlock today.

The administrative and policy works had been affected due to the padlock for a long time.

The United States late Friday rescinded a 17-month-old requirement that people arriving in the country by air test negative for COVID-19, a move that follows intense lobbying by airlines and the travel industry, Reuters reported.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky issued a four-page order lifting the mandate, effective at 12:01 a.m. ET (0400 GMT) Sunday, saying it is "not currently necessary."

The requirement had been one of the last major US COVID-19 travel requirements. Its end comes as the summer travel season kicks off, and airlines were already preparing for record demand. Airlines have said that many Americans have not been not traveling internationally because of concerns they will test positive and be stranded abroad.

US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said the CDC decision is based on science and available data, and said the agency "will not hesitate to reinstate a pre-departure testing requirement, if needed later."

The CDC will reassess the decision in 90 days, an administration official said.

The United States has required incoming international air travelers to provide pre-departure negative tests since January 2021. In December the CDC tightened the rule to require travelers to test negative within one day before flights to the United States rather than three days, according to Reuters.

The CDC has not required testing for land border crossings.

Many countries in Europe and elsewhere have already dropped testing requirements.

The CDC is still requiring most non-U.S. citizens to be vaccinated against COVID to travel to the United States.

Two officials told Reuters the Biden administration had considered lifting the testing rule only for vaccinated travelers.

JetBlue Airways Chief Executive Robin Hayes told Reuters on Friday that the testing requirement was "the last obstacle to a really full international travel recovery," saying that it "served no purpose anymore."

IATA, the world's biggest airline trade group, said it was "great news" that the administration is "removing the ineffective pre-departure COVID test for travel to the US."

In April, a federal judge declared the CDC's requirements that travelers wear masks on airplanes and in transit hubs like airports unlawful and the Biden administration stopped enforcing it. The Justice Department has appealed the order, but no decision is likely before fall at the earliest.

The CDC continues to recommend travelers wear masks and get COVID-19 tests before and after international flights, Reuters reported.

Raymond James said in a research note that lifting the restrictions "is an important catalyst for international travel."

Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Ed Bastian told Reuters last week that dropping the requirements will boost travel, noting that 44 of 50 countries Delta serves do not require testing.

US Travel Association CEO Roger Dow said Friday's move will "accelerate the recovery of the US travel industry," which was hard hit by the pandemic.

Nine people have been arrested in China after a video went viral of a brutal attack by a group of men on women in the city of Tangshan, police say, BBC reported.

It has led to an outcry on social media and re-ignited debate about gender violence in China.

The incident began when a man put his hand on a woman's back in a restaurant and she pushed him away.

The man is seen striking her before others drag her outside and continue attacking as she lies on the floor.

The group of men are also seen attacking her dining partners.

Two of the women were admitted to hospital and were in a "stable condition and not in mortal danger", while two others sustained minor injuries, officials said, according to BBC.

Police in Tangshan, in northern Hebei province, said they had arrested nine people on suspicion of violent assault and "provoking trouble". 

The attack dominated discussion on Chinese social media on Saturday, taking up the top six places of Weibo's most-discussed topics. State television called for the suspects to be severely punished.

"All of this could happen to me, could happen to any of us," said one commenter in a post liked over 100,000 times.

"How is this sort of thing still happening in 2022?" wrote another. "Please give them criminal sentences, and don't let any of them get away."

A widely shared WeChat post took issue with the initial official framing of the attack as a simple act of violence, BBC reported.

"This happened in a society where violence against women is rampant," the anonymous post said. 

"To ignore and suppress the perspective of gender is to deny the violence that people - as women - suffer."

Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied across the US to call for stricter gun laws in the wake of two mass shootings, BBC reported.

Those taking part at the hundreds of marches carried slogans like "I want freedom from getting shot".

US President Joe Biden backed the protests, calling on Congress to "pass common sense gun safety legislation".

Despite this the chances of legal change are likely to be quashed by Republicans. 

Nineteen children and two adults were killed in the 24 May shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.

That attack, and another days earlier in Buffalo, New York, in which 10 people were killed, has led to renewed calls for action on gun control in the US, according to BBC.

On Saturday, gun safety group March For Our Lives - founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida - said some 450 rallies would be held across the country, including Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. 

The group said it would not let politicians "sit back" as people continue to die.

March For Our Lives (MFOL) said political leaders' inaction was killing Americans. 

"We will no longer allow you to sit back while people continue to die," Trevon Bosley, a MFOL board member, said in a statement.

Speaking to protesters in Washington DC, one of the survivors of the Parkland shooting, David Hogg, said the killings of children in Uvalde "should fill us with rage and demands for change, not endless debate, but demands for change, now."

Garnell Whitfield, whose 86-year-old mother was killed in the racially-motivated shooting in Buffalo, New York on 14 May, told crowds in Washington: "We are here to demand justice, BBC reported. 

"We are here to stand with those who are bold enough to demand sensible gun legislation." 

Among other policies, MFOL has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks for those trying to purchase guns and a national licensing system, which would register gun owners.