Kathmandu - Sopranos star Michael Imperioli kicked off an expedition Monday that will see a motley crew of celebrities drive 10 fire trucks on Nepal's hair-raising roads for charity.

Kathmandu - A notorious French criminal who earned the nickname "bikini killer" for a string of murders throughout Asia in the 1970s, was in a Nepali hospital Friday, where he is expected to undergo open heart surgery, sources said.

Kathmandu - Satyarup Siddhanta only discovered he was at the centre of an Everest fraud when he spotted news of a couple whose false claim to have scaled the world's highest peak has set off a debate about how mountaineering feats are authenticated.

Kathmandu - Spanish mountaineer Kilian Jornet has reached the summit of Mount Everest for the second time in a week, his team said Sunday.

Kathmandu - Rescuers have retrieved the bodies of two Indian climbers who died on Mount Everest last year but whose remains could not be moved due to bad weather, an official said Thursday.

Kathmandu - The Hillary Step -- a rocky outcrop near the top of Mount Everest -- is still intact, Nepali climbers said Wednesday, rejecting a widely reported claim by a British mountaineer that it had collapsed.

Kathmandu - Rescuers found the bodies of four climbers on Mount Everest, an expedition organiser said Wednesday, taking the season's death toll to 10 as experts warn cut-price mountaineering outfits are putting clients at risk.

Kathmandu - Spanish mountaineer Kilian Jornet has set a record for the fastest ascent of Mount Everest without fixed ropes or supplementary oxygen, climbing the world's highest peak in just 26 hours, his team said Tuesday.

Kathmandu - Three climbers died on Everest over the weekend and another is missing, officials confirmed Monday, in one of the deadliest episodes on the peak since an avalanche swept through base camp killing 18 two years ago.

Kathmandu - An American climber died Sunday on his way to the summit of Mount Everest, expedition organisers said, the latest death to mar the ongoing climbing season.

Kathmandu - An Indian climber Sunday reached the summit of Mount Everest for the second time in less than a week, her expedition team said, setting a women's record for a double ascent of the world's highest mountain in a single season.

Kathmandu - A South African caught attempting to climb Mount Everest without an $11,000 permit said Thursday that he couldn't afford the hefty fee but had always planned to turn himself in and serve jail time as punishment.

Kathmandu - A South African who attempted to climb Mount Everest without permission has been arrested in Nepal where he faces a $22,000 fine -- double the cost of the permit he was trying to avoid.

Kathmandu - Nepal held local-level polls on Sunday, the first since 1997 and a key step in its rocky road to democracy more than a decade after a civil war ended.

Kathmandu - An 85-year-old ex-Gurkha who was attempting to reclaim his title as the world's oldest person to summit Mount Everest died at base camp on Saturday.

Kathmandu - Swiss climber Ueli Steck, one of the most feted mountaineers of his generation and famed for his speed ascents of iconic Alpine routes, died on Mount Everest on Sunday, officials said."Today morning, he had an accident on the Nuptse wall and died.

Kathmandu - A Taiwanese trekker who was rescued on a Nepal mountainside seven weeks after going missing marked his 21st birthday in a Kathmandu hospital Friday, recovering from an ordeal that left his girlfriend dead.

Kathmandu - A Taiwanese trekker is recovering in hospital after rescuers found him and his dead girlfriend on a mountainside in Nepal where they were stranded for 47 days, surviving on only water and salt after their food ran out.

Kathmandu - Rescuers on Wednesday found two Taiwanese trekkers who went missing in a remote mountainous part of Nepal seven weeks ago, but only one survived the ordeal.

Kathmandu - The day after Nepal was struck by a devastating earthquake, Samrat Basnet opened his doors to the wounded as hospitals overwhelmed with thousands of victims had to send away those without life-threatening injuries.