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Conor McGregor has lost his civil jury appeal against a finding that he sexually assaulted a woman, BBC reported.

In November, McGregor was ordered to pay £206,000 in damages plus costs to Nikita Hand, who accused him of raping her in a hotel in Dublin in 2018.

McGregor appealed on the grounds that his lawyers believed his answers to police during interviews should not have been put before the jury, according to BBC.

Justin Timberlake has revealed he is living with Lyme disease, BBC reported.

The 44-year-old said he was "shocked" to receive the diagnosis but it explained why he "would be on stage and in a massive amount of nerve pain or, just feeling crazy fatigue or sickness". 

The Cry Me A River singer shared his diagnosis on Instagram following the conclusion of his Forget Tomorrow world tour.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks. A few people diagnosed and treated for the disease can continue to have symptoms, like tiredness, aches and loss of energy, that can last for years, according to BBC.

A radioactive wasp nest with radiation levels ten times of what is allowed under regulations was found at a facility that once produced parts for US nuclear weapons, federal officials said, BBC reported.

"The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radiological waste," says a US Department of Energy report released last week. No wasps were found at the site near Aiken in South Carolina.

Investigators say the contamination is not related to a nuclear waste leak, and that there was no impact to "the environment, or the public".

Environmental groups have criticised the government's handling of the situation, according to BBC.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Gaza on Friday to inspect food distribution sites, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has confirmed, BBC reported.

Leavitt said Witkoff would visit the territory along with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and "secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear first-hand about this dire situation on the ground".

Witkoff, who is on a visit to Israel, also had a "productive" meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the press secretary added, according to BBC.

The US says it is going to impose sanctions on the Palestinians' self-governance organisation as well as the body that represents it on the international stage, BBC reported.

The sanctions affect both the Palestinian Authority (PA) which was established by the Oslo peace accords, and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which was recognised after the same process as the official representative of the Palestinian people in return for it recognising Israel and renouncing violence.

The State Department said it would deny visas to PLO members and PA officials, according to BBC.

As the global telecommunications industry accelerates toward 6G and 5G becomes standard in many countries, Nepal is witnessing an unexpected surge in 2G network users, especially in rural areas.

According to data released by the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the telecom sector regulator, the number of 2G subscribers in the country more than doubled in the fiscal year 2024/25. Within the period, 2G users increased from 1.46m in mid-July 2024 to over 3.15m in mid-July this year—a jump of more than 1.7m users in just one year.

This rise stands in stark contrast to global trends and highlights the persistent digital divide within the country. While urban populations have largely moved on to faster networks like 4G, rural areas continue to depend heavily on basic 2G connectivity. This is not due to a lack of awareness about advanced technology, but rather to infrastructural limitations and the challenging geography of Nepal’s remote regions, say officials of NTA. 

In many rural areas, newer-generation networks are either unavailable or unreliable. This leaves local people with little choice but to rely on the aging 2G network.

Even as 2G sees renewed growth, Nepal Telecom, the state-owned telecom operator, announced plans to phase out its 2G services on the 1800 MHz band within this fiscal year to repurpose the spectrum for more advanced technologies and push for wider adoption of 4G and 5G.

Private player Ncell has also announced plans to discontinue 2G services in 2027. It plans to shut down 3G this year.

Progress on 5G, however, has been slow. Although NTA permitted Nepal Telcom to start 5G testing five years ago, the state-owned telco has not been able to roll out the service. Officials of Nepal Telecom, however, say that 5G testing will begin later this year with initial launches planned in Kathmandu and other major cities.    

Ncell, another major GSM operator, has temporarily put its 5G rollout plans on hold. CEO Jabbor Kayumov recently indicated that launching 5G is challenging under current conditions, pointing to a steady decline in telecom revenues over the past five years.

Lalbir Chaudhary has been appointed as the new Chairman of the Nagarik Unmukti Party.. 

A national gathering of the party held in Kathmandu decided to appoint Chaudhary as the party’s new  Chairperson, said Arun Kumar Chaudhary, lawmaker of the party. 

Lalbir is also a member of the House of Representatives.

The two-day national gathering was organized in Kathmandu from July 30. 

Lawmaker Arun Kumar shared that such a decision was taken after the party leader, Ranjita Shrestha, fueled indecision in the party and failed to hold central committee meetings for the past one-and-half-years. 

Meanwhile, Ranjita Shrestha, who was relieved from the post of Chairperson of the party, said the decision taken against the party statute would not be acceptable to her. 

"A new chairperson has been picked by calling a national gathering without informing me. It is against the party statute. I will resort to a legal recourse to it", she said.

Lalbir is the father of Resham Chaudhary, patron of the party.

In the life of an individual, graduation is a moment to cherish—forever. This holds true for a nation as well.

Come 2026 and Nepal is set to graduate from the club of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), a grouping of 44 countries from Africa (32), Asia (8), Caribbean (1) and Pacific (3), leaving behind its 54-year association with the club, as the club chair on her last legs.

Of the three criteria for graduation—gross national income (GNI) per capita, human assets index (HAI) and economic vulnerability index—Nepal has fallen a bit short of the first criteria but met the other two, becoming the first country to graduate without meeting the GNI criterion.

Let’s revisit Nepal’s scores against the three indices over the past decade.

In 2015, also the year of a massive Gorkha earthquake that left behind a trail of deaths and destruction, followed by a blockade, Nepal’s GDI per capita stood at a paltry $659 against the minimum threshold of $1248. In 2018, 2021 and 2024, its GDI stood at $745, $1027 and $1300 against the minimum thresholds of $1230, $1222 and $1306.

On the two other parameters, Nepal has consistently performed alright.

But, as they say, a miss is as good as a mile and this rings true on the GDI front, from 2015 to 2019 (the year of the Covid pandemic) and beyond.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, while addressing the National Assembly recently, when the ‘hallowed’ hall was fully awake (most probably), read the upcoming graduation in an albeit different light. According to the chief executive, this shows that the implementation of (his vision) ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’  has begun yielding results.

What does this graduation mean for the country and the people? Per the PM, the improvement in the parameters in question and the upcoming graduation is an indication of Nepal heading toward self-reliance and a rising global profile of the country.

While the graduation indicates that Nepal has grown richer, how much of the riches have trickled down to the bottom rung over the years is an open question.

Analyses suggest that graduation means Nepal will no longer have easy access to cheaper international loans, that it will impact international support and assistance that Nepal has been enjoying, the number of scholarships for Nepali students will go down and that the country will have to strive harder for bringing in foreign investment, so on and so forth.

Here’s hoping that our government will be able to make the best of the opportunities that come with the graduation as well as some shocks that come with it.

Experts say that diplomacy comes handy in such situations.   

Indeed, as Eleanor Roosevelt says, the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.