Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying the extension of New START, an important arms control treaty with the United States, a week before it was due to expire, the Kremlin said in a statement on Friday, January 29.
The treaty limits the number of strategic offensive weapons both countries can have.
The nuclear arms control agreement has been extended for five years until February 5, 2026, the Kremlin said.
It limits each country to no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers; no more than 1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and heavy bombers for nuclear armaments; and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers.
The deal between Russia and the US is the last major deal between both countries after the Trump administration pulled out of a separate nuclear arms control agreement with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), in 2019, claiming China needed to be part of the agreement and also reduce it’s Nuclear arsenal.
According to the Kremlin, Putin and US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone on Tuesday this week expressing “satisfaction” over the exchange of diplomatic notes between both countries on extending the treaty.
On Wednesday, the Russian Parliament voted to ratify the five-year extension of the treaty.
The landmark treaty was first signed for a period of 10 years by former US President Barack Obama and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. It took effect on February 5, 2011.
“Renewing the Treaty meets the national interests of the Russian Federation, makes it possible to maintain the transparency and predictability of strategic relations between Russia and the United States and to support global strategic stability; it will have a beneficial effect on the international situation, and contribute to the nuclear disarmament process,” the Kremlin said in the statement published Friday evening.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters “that the New START Treaty is in the national security interests of the United States, and this extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial, as it is at this time.”
Psaki added that it was the “only remaining treaty constraining Russian nuclear forces and is an anchor of strategic stability between our two countries.”
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has seized a consignment of cocaine and heroin worth over N30billion at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.
One of the seizures, 26.840 kilograms of cocaine, is the biggest single seizure from an individual in the past 15 years. An official of the agency who spoke on condition of anonymity said
“On January 27, 2021, at about 1320hours, during the inward clearance of Ethiopian Airline passengers at the E- arrival hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, a female passenger, by name Onyejegbu Ifesinachi Jennifer, 33 years, who arrived Nigeria from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, was intercepted by NDLEA operatives.
As a standard operating procedure, all passengers to and from high risk countries are always profiled, using passengers’ manifest. It happened that the above-named suspect was targeted. Consequently, she was taken to NDLEA office at the Airport, where her bags were searched thoroughly, and in the process, whitish powdery substances were found concealed inside 16 pieces of duvet contained in her two travel bags.
Field test was conducted on the recovered substances and proved to be Cocaine and weighed 26.850kilogrammes. The suspect, who is a hair stylist and based in Brazil, was interviewed and she confessed to having agreed to smuggle the hard drug for the sum of N2m. Although she refused to disclose the names of her associates, she, however, said she was asked to hand over the drugs to another person. The street value of this singular seizure is put at over N21b.”
The official further disclosed that the development came on the heels of a similar one recorded on January 25, 2021, when red luggage was declared to the NDLEA operatives as a left-over at the E- arrival hall, after the inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian airline.
“Based on information on the tag, the luggage arrived Nigeria from Sao Paulo, Brazil, a destination classified as high-risk country, going by records and trends of arrest and seizures.
Subsequently, the bag was transferred to the NDLEA ‘Legal Seat’ being the administrative office at the passenger terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, for detention. While this was going on, the NDLEA Commander at the MMIA, Ahmadu Garba received an intelligence report of a purported plan to clear a consignment containing hard drug through the Lagos airport. Coincidentally, the details sent matched the bag earlier detained by the operatives at the Lagos airport.
In a coordinated operation, on January 27, 2021, an NDLEA undercover agent was contacted by one Abubakar Aliyu. Guided by the operation and investigation unit, the undercover agent successfully lured the said Abubakar Aliyu into the cargo terminal of the airport, where he was arrested. The suspect revealed to NDLEA operatives that another person was on his way to receive the bag, based on the instruction of his sender, whose name he gave as Ikechukwu Eze.
Consequently, one Emmanuel Iyke Aniebonam, who was to receive the bag was also arrested at NAHCO. During preliminary interview by a team of investigators, Emmanuel confessed that he was instructed by one Ikechukwu to receive the consignment. Emmanuel was again set up to lure in Ikechukwu Eze, but rather than showing up to get the consignment from Emmanuel, he sent another who said he was mandated to receive the consignment from him, and they agreed to meet at Ibis Royal Hotel, a few miles away from the airport.
A follow-up operation was quickly organised to the hotel, where one Onwurah Kelvin was arrested and brought to the office. The suspect confessed during interview that he was sent by one Ikechukwu to receive the consignment. Thereafter, the detained bag was opened in the presence of the three suspects, and whitish powdery substances were discovered neatly concealed and sewn inside five children duvets. Field test carried out on the exhibits proved they are cocaine, weighed to be 8.400 kilogrammes, with a street value of over N7b…”
Former US President Donald Trump has reportedly parted ways with the two lead lawyers working on his defense for his Senate impeachment trial.
The former US president is set to stand trial in the week beginning on February 8 on allegations he incited his supporters to storm Congress before President Joe Biden’s inauguration in an attempt to halt the peaceful transition of power.
Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi, two South Carolina lawyers, are no longer on Trump’s team, a person familiar with the legal strategy and two attorneys close to the team confirmed on Saturday night, January 30. The source described the move as a “mutual decision.”
Three other lawyers associated with the team, Josh Howard of North Carolina and Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris of South Carolina, also reportedly parted ways with Trump.
Trump reportedly had differences with Bowers over strategy ahead of the trial as he is still contending that he was the victim of mass election fraud in the November 3 election won by President Joe Biden.
The news leaves Trump’s defense team in turmoil as he prepares for a trial starting on February 9 to consider an article of impeachment passed by the House of Representatives charging Trump with inciting the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by his followers.
This comes days after five Senate Republicans voted in favour of an effort to dismiss the trial before it starts, making clear a conviction of the former president is unlikely regardless of his defence team.
It will be the first time in US history that any president faced two impeachment trials or that any president was impeached after he left office.
The Cross River Government has demolished a building belonging to a suspected kidnapper and a brothel allegedly housing underaged girls for prostitution.
The buildings located in Calabar were demolished by the state security outfit, Operation Akpakwu on Friday, January 29.
Briefing newsmen after the demolition exercise, the State Security Adviser to Governor Ben Ayade (Southern Senatorial District), Henry Okokon, said that the state government placed a premium on the security of lives and property, hence, the need to fight all forms of criminality.
“This is part of the activities of Operation Akpakwu, a special force set up by Gov. Ayade to fight crime, especially kidnapping. This demolition is ongoing. The governor has warned that anyone involved in any form of criminality, or any landlord harbouring any criminal should desist from it,” he said.
“The bungalow that was demolished belonged to an individual who has been caught in the act of kidnapping, while the brothel was demolished for housing underage persons for prostitution and other illegal activities. This is a warning signal to everybody. Whosoever is involved in the crime of any form should desist from it,’’ Okokon said.
He said that the security outfit got a court order to demolish the buildings in line with the state Homeland Security law.
Okokon urged businessmen in the state to go about their lawful businesses, giving the assurance that the state government would do its best to protect them against criminals.
Operatives of the Nigeria Police INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) Abuja, have arrested two Kano based suspects, Ibrahim Muazzam Mohammad Aminu and Mohammad Tahir Umar, for engaging in international child pornography.
Force spokesperson, CP Frank Mba, who disclosed this in a statement on Sunday, said investigations revealed that the suspects are members of a trans-border/international child porn syndicate which sexually abuse and take undue advantage of underage girls and disseminate the video recordings of the illicit sexual act on an international social media Whatsapp group chat known as “Pervertidos”, owned and managed by a Brazilian called Adriana.
“Their arrest followed intelligence received from the INTERPOL NCB, Brasilia. Exhibits recovered from the suspects include: three (3) mobile phones and a Laptop computer. Forensic investigations/analysis carried out by the Police team on the gadgets revealed the series of pornographic/erotic videos with underage girls which the suspects shared on the internet for a fee denominated in US Dollars,” the statement reads.
Meanwhile, the IGP notes that a total of two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two (2,792) suspects were arrested by the Police for Sexual and Gender Based Violence and other sexual related offences in the year 2020.
The statatement said “the arrests are linked to the two thousand, five hundred and seventy-three (2,573) cases currently being prosecuted under the Force Gender Unit in various courts across the country. Others are still under active investigations,”
“The IGP enjoins parents and guardians to keep a close watch on their children and wards and report any incidents of abuse against women and children. He expresses his displeasure with the prevailing culture of silence in concealing crimes against women and children and calls for improved collaboration with the Police, assuring that the Force is well repositioned to protect women and children and confront violent crimes in the country,”
The statement added that the suspects will be arraigned in court on completion of investigations
The UK is ready to welcome tens of thousands of migrants from Hong Kong, with the opening of a new visa for residents of the former British colony this Sunday, according to a report by the BBC.
The report comes after China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that ended the city’s autonomy, civil and social freedoms, and solidified Beijing’s authoritarian rule over the territory.
The rule has brought about the arrest of hundreds of activists and has made the US restrict it’s business with Hong Kong, saying the economy of the former British colony is now being controlled by China.
The law criminalizes secession, ‘subversion and collusion with foreign forces’, and carries with it a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
After the law was enacted, the UK government announced it would provide a new path to citizenship for holders of British National (Overseas) passports, which were introduced in the final years of British rule over Hong Kong, enabling residents to hold onto a degree of British citizenship.
Under the new citizenship program by the UK, those with BN(O) status and their eligible family members will be able to travel to the UK to live, study and work, becoming eligible for settlement in the UK in five years, and citizenship 12 months after that.
In a statement Friday, January 29, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said by taking this move, “we have honored our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong, and we have stood up for freedom and autonomy — values both the UK and Hong Kong hold dear.”
Since July 2019, when anti-government protests broke out across the city, over 400,000 BN(O) passports have been issued to Hong Kong residents, according to data from the UK Home Office.
At the time the national security law was proposed, the number of passports issued jumped from 7,515 in June 2020, to over 24,000 in July.
Before the UK announced the new path to citizenship, there were around 350,000 BN(O) passport holders, but the number of people who are eligible those born before 1997, in British-ruled Hong Kong — could be as high as 3 million.
In a press conference Friday, China claims the plan breaches the agreement under which Hong Kong was handed over from British to Chinese rule
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the UK of “disregarding the fact that Hong Kong has returned to the motherland for 24 years” and violating promises made at the time of handover.
He said the BN(O) path to citizenship “seriously violates China’s sovereignty, grossly interferes in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs, and seriously violates international law and basic norms of international relations.”
From January 31, Zhao said, China will no longer recognize BN(O) passports as travel documents or identification proof, “and reserves the right to take further measures.”
A Dutch Appeal court has ordered oil giant Royal Dutch Shell to pay compensation to four farmers in the Niger Delta for alleged widespread pollution on their farmland.
The four farmers who reside in the Niger Delta region, alongside their ally, the Friends of the Earth campaign group, had in 2008, filed the case against the oil giant. According to the farmers, oil spillage from the pipelines owned by the oil giant destroyed their farmland, leading to huge losses in their products and returns in revenue.
According to the court papers, the farmers said the spills concerned were between 2004 and 2007, but pollution from leaking oil pipelines remains a major problem in the Niger Delta.
Shell had argued that saboteurs were responsible for leaks in underground oil pipes that have polluted the region. The company also argued that it should not be held legally responsible in the Netherlands for the actions of its foreign subsidiary, meaning Shell Nigeria.
However, in its ruling delivered today January 29, the Dutch appeal court ruled that Shell Nigeria, must pay the demanded compensation. The court did not hold Shell’s parent company directly responsible for the spillage but ordered it to install a leak detection system on the Oruma pipeline, the site of a significant number of the spills in the case.
“Shell Nigeria is sentenced to compensate farmers for damages,” the court said in its ruling, which can be appealed via the Dutch Supreme Court.
The amount of compensation will be established at a later date. The court did not specify how many of the four farmers would receive compensation.
Footballers, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Romelu Lukaku have both received a one-match ban each following their heated confrontation in the Milan derby on Tuesday.
The AC Milan and Inter Milan strikers nearly came to blows just before half-time at the San Siro Stadium during their Coppa Italia clash.
Both players were issued a yellow card, with Ibrahimovic later being sent off the pitch for receiving a second booking.
As both were booked and pulled apart during the heated confrontation, Ibrahimovic can be heard yelling at Lukaku: ‘Go do your voodoo s***, you little donkey.’
Lukaku was also heard telling the AC Milan striker ‘f*** you and your wife, you little b****’ and ‘you want to speak about my mother!?’ as his Inter team-mates held him back.
The next day, Ibrahimovic was forced to address allegations that he used racist language on Romelu Lukaku during their derby clash, insisting that he isn’t racist.
‘In ZLATAN’s world there is no place for RACISM,’ he tweeted. ‘We are all the same race – we are all equal!!’
However, the Swede could not resist a jibe to who is the king of Milan, adding: ‘We are all PLAYERS but some better than others.’
Both players have now received a one-match ban each for their actions but the Italian Football Federation could still open an investigation to assess any possible discrimination, as they are yet to receive the referee’s report on the incident.
A Brazilian sex worker who swallowed 1.2 kilos of cocaine to smuggle it into the UK has been jailed for more than four years.
Luan Irving Dos Santos Monteiro, 31, was reportedly stopped by border agents at Heathrow airport on Christmas Eve last year as he flew into Britain from Sao Paulo.
An x-ray revealed he had ingested 101 packages of cocaine with a street value of almost £100,000 before getting on the 11-hour flight.
His barrister, Graham Lloyd, told Isleworth crown court yesterday: “This was very much a crime of desperation.
“If at any time during the long flight from Sao Paulo any of the packages had burst, that would have probably meant instant death.”
Mr. Lloyd said Monteiro works as a sex worker in Brazil, where more than 200,000 people have died as a result of Covid-19.
“The position is far worse than the position here, and has led to financial devastation”, he said.
“It has had bad consequences for his employment as a sex worker.
“He tried to move his physical sex transactions to online sexual services, and he tells me that would be verified by his Twitter account on which he advertises sexual services.”
Monteiro confessed he uses drugs in his line of work and has racked up a debt worth around £2,000 which he was hoping to pay off through drug smuggling.
Prosecutor Anisha Kiri said Monteiro claimed he was travelling to the UK for a Christmas and New Year holiday and was being met by a friend called Emily.
“The defendant was taken for an x-ray which captured images indicating the presence of foreign objects in his abdomen”, she said.
“The defendant then admitted swallowing around 100 packages of what he believed was drugs.”
She added Monteiro’s passport indicated he had made a string of international trips since January last year. He was handed over by border agents to the National Crime Agency but made no comment in the interview.
Judge Edward Connell sentenced Monteiro to four years and two months in prison, telling him: “I accept you were motivated due to a drug debt you had accumulated in Brazil, and pressure had been brought to bear upon you and members of your family.”
Monteiro, who pleaded guilty to attempting to import class A drugs, will serve half his prison sentence in the UK before being released on license. After his released, he may then be deported back to Brazil.
Wendy Williams, 56, appeared on “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” on Thursday, Jan 28, and opened up about Sharina Hudson, the longtime mistress of her now-ex-husband Kevin Hunter.
When Andy Cohen asked her about co-parenting, she delved into her relationship with Kevin and how he started seeing his mistress.
She said: “I was with him for 25 years, in love with him probably from our third date. … [I knew about Hudson] just about the whole 13 years that they were together, and people behind the scenes say it was more like 15 years.”
The TV host, whose Lifetime movie and documentary airs on Saturday, then threw shade at Hudson.
Wendy said of her ex-husband’s mistress: “She was one of these less-than-smart women who moved to the big city with bright lights and she wanted to be a model.
Wendy explained that Hudson used to work bottle service at a club party she hosted, where Williams would encourage them to flirt with men — including Hunter — to get them to spend more money on drinks.
Wendy continued: “Kevin’s problem is that Kevin ended up getting with this girl. She made herself very available to him.
“She was very disrespectful to me. Do you know he had the nerve to tell me that she admires me?”
When asked if Hudson and Hunter are still together, Williams said she didn’t know. However, she did acknowledge that Kevin Hunter and Hudson’s daughter, Journey, would be turning 2 in March.
Making it clear that they are living on her money, Wendy said: “My alimony for all three of them is on time every month.”
Daytime talk show host, Wendy Williams disclosed that she once had a one night stand with Wu-Tang clan member, Method Man.
Ahead of the debut of her film, Wendy Williams: The Movie, and her documentary, Wendy Williams: What a Mess, Williams who chatted with DJ Suss One recalled taking the Wu-Tang Clan member back to her penthouse after a night at the club.
The talk show host who has been open about her drug abuse past, also disclosed that the story won’t be included in her upcoming film.
She said;
“I smoked a blunt … with Method Man while I gave him a bath and it was a one-night stand.
“He’ll deny it, maybe not. It wasn’t in the movie because [he] is still very angry at me … for being me—for telling the truth. It was one night. We were in the club—a fight broke out and gunshots broke out. The fight was ridiculous. The whole Wu-Tang was there but it was only Meth up in the rafters. And see, that’s where I go to observe everything because I was by myself.
“He goes, ‘Yo, Wendy!’ Because he’d been on the show before and he was f’d up. I smelled the weed and I had weed but he had better … He rolled a blunt, we smoked a blunt, we watched the fight, we heard the gunshots, the cops came in. … I guess I batted my eyes and rocked my shoulders and I said, ‘You wanna come over?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll follow you.”
Williams then described how they snuck out of the club, got into her SUV, and drove to her penthouse in Jersey City. When Suss One asked if they went all the way, she replied, “Yes!”
She said;
“People didn’t even realize at the time it was Wendy and one of the biggest stars, the leader of the biggest group in the world, just left, got in her Pathfinder, and went back to her penthouse in Jersey City where she bathed him in her jacuzzi tub and smoked more weed, you know, that was back in the coke days.
“I don’t remember what he did, I’m not gonna implicate him on that.”
A young Mexican footballer has had his leg amputated after suffering severe injuries following an accident in his home.
Rodrigo Alain Cuevas was a forward for Ciervos Chalco FC in the Liga Premier, the third tier of football in Mexico.
The club said in a statement that Cuevas, 27, had suffered third-degree burns from a high-voltage electrical discharge.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Cuevas was prevented from being treated in Mexico City and was transferred to the Sinaloan town of Culiacan where he was operated on three days after the incident
“When I suffered the accident, none of the hospitals in the [city of] Mexico could admit me because they were full of COVID-19 [cases],” Cuevas wrote on social media. “Thanks to a contact, I was transferred by ambulance to Culiacan, where I was admitted.”
Cuevas posted a photograph on Facebook from his hospital bed after the operation giving a thumbs up and wrote: “My left foot was shattered. The surgeon and the doctors, as they should be, were honest and direct with me and my parents.’
“What they told us was that my foot had to be amputated because it was too infected and if it was not operated on, it would put my life at risk.
“At first my parents didn’t want to, they wanted a second opinion, because they know what soccer means to me but the doctors said there was no time.
“In that moment thousands of things were going through my head, I thought that my football career was over, that it was short, I thought of all the sacrifices that I went through to step on a pitch professionally.
“I made the decision because I am of legal age to have my left foot amputated, and at that moment I had a great life lesson, that although you love doing something so much, practicing a sport, or “X” whatever you do, you should never put it above your life.
“I want to thank all the people that have helped me financially to pay for the medical costs, I will be eternally grateful.”
The football club also shared a statement on Facebook saying: “This incident might distance Alain from the field, but not from the team.
“We accompany him as a teammate and his family in the most difficult game he has played yet, from which we know he will come out victorious, like the champion he is.”
Leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has issued a 14-day ultimatum to South-East Governors to ban all forms of open grazing in the region in compliance with the 1969 statutory law of Nigeria.
Kanu gave the ultimatum while commending governors of the South West who recently announced a ban on open grazing in the state as part of measures to stop the incessant clash between Farmers and herdsmen.
Kanu in a statement released by IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, warned the group’s security outfit would commence enforcement of the anti-grazing Law across the entire region if no action was taken at the expiration of the ultimatum.
“We wish to humbly and most submissively call upon all the governors of the East, to as a matter of urgency, ban all manner of open grazing in the region in compliance with the 1969 statutory law of #Nigeria that banned such provocative and primitive practice by Fulani herdsmen.
The bold step taken by Yoruba governors in banning open grazing in their region is commendable and as such MUST be reciprocated and consolidated by a similar pronouncement in the East.
If after 14 days there is no firm and decisive action by Eastern governors to ban open grazing in our land, #ESN will step into the breach to commence the enforcement of this 1969 Anti-Grazing Law across the entire region. Don’t say you were not informed or given prior warning.”the statement read
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the release of the rioter who was pictured with his feet up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during Capitol riot in Washington earlier this month, calling his actions “a total disregard for the U.S. Constitution.”
The ruling reverses an Arkansas federal magistrate’s order two weeks ago releasing Richard Barnett, 60, to home detention on a $5,000 unsecured bond. Barnett, who has been in custody since turning himself in to authorities on Jan. 8, will remain behind bars pending his trial on multiple charges, including a felony count of knowingly entering the Capitol with a dangerous weapon.
“His entitled behavior that he exhibited in videos and photographs when inside the Capitol shows a total disregard for the law and for officials’ directives, a total disregard for the U.S. Constitution,” said Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Beryl Howell in a blistering rebuke of the assault on Congress. “This violence disrupted a constitutional function of Congress.”
Prosecutors say the Arkansas man purchased a high-voltage Zap Hike N Strike hiking staff from Bass Pro Shop six days before the riot, along with two bottles of pepper spray and two packages containing three two-way radios.
He traveled alone to Washington D.C. to participate in the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally and subsequent attack on the Capitol, prosecutors said, adding that he turned locations services off on his cell phone, used cash on the trip and took steps to conceal his face on his way back to Arkansas the day after the incident.
According to court documents, Barnett turned over the sealed envelope that he admitted taking from Pelosi’s office, but told federal agents that they may not find much at his residence because he “is a smart man.” Prosecutors say they still cannot locate Barnett’s cellphone or weapons, and that he has two dates of birth listed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Dohrman told Howell during Thursday’s detention hearing that Barnett deserves to remain behind bars due to his “brazen” actions, which he “bragged publicly about.”
“The defendant’s release to the community after having so flagrantly flouted the laws and carried a dangerous weapon into the U.S. Capitol during official proceedings would tend to embolden and invigorate individuals with plans to possess or carry dangerous weapons in and around Capitol grounds,” Dohrman argued.
“He’s certainly a braggart,” Howell, a Barack Obama appointee, said when delivering her ruling. Barnett was transferred to Washington D.C. after the government appealed the Jan. 15 ruling releasing him to home detention.
“The government has presented overwhelming evidence that this defendant, Richard Barnett, enthusiastically participated in this assault on the Capitol,” the judge said.
A former President, National Union of Benue Students, Lubem Terkula Aluta Genera, has lamented about the increase in “crime and prostitution” in Benue State as a result of poverty, economic deprivation and mismanagement of state resources.
According to the former student leader, traders and bussinessmen from other parts of the country prosper in Tivland, adding that all the luxury homes in the state particularly the capital, are owned by them while 77% of Benue indigenes live in mud houses with thatched roof.
Read his post below:
WHAT CAN WE DO???
Direction
Check from Wurukum to High-level down to Modern market pass across develope areas in makurdi, all Duplex, mansions and luxury homes are owned by strangers.
Why 77% Benuelites lived in mud houses with thatched roof.
Have you accompanied a politician or any man who is populary known as a rich man in Benue state to his or her village lately? You will see hefty men whose palpable muscles are only for farming, begging him for money forcefully?
Or you will see old women singing songs and following him up and down?
Also you will see very promising young ladies dancing dirty?
Trace these attributes properly. This is the picture of poverty in the land.
Don’t be confused if you see young girls becoming prostitutes day by day. In the night, for some of you who stay in Makurdi or visit often. For those who love clubbing and the easy life, don’t be confused about what you see at wurukum round about, Jackies, TC Wine bar, Exclusives…don’t get philosophical, trace it properly to poverty.
To we the young men crimes are committed on a daily basis ranging from Cultists, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, domestic violence, child abuse, murder, burglary, financial crimes, cyber crimes, fraud, terrorism and lots more.
As a result of Poverty and economic deprivation have been seen to be the number cause of crime in Benue State.
But if you look carefully at the situation of Poverty and its consquences in Tivland today, you will come to the realization that poverty is just a manifestation of other deeper issues.
On the other hand, late Rev Fr. Moses Adasu said, a peaceful intruder on Tivland ends up enjoying Tivland more than the Tiv.
The Tiv infact, are much more susceptible or amenable to strangers than their fellow Tiv. expressions commonly found on Tiv lips, like “an or Igbo Wam,” according to Adasu, comfirms this stance.
Traders and bussinessmen of other parts of the state and Federation enjoy Tivland more than those of Tiv origin; civil servants and administrators from other parts of the state and federation enjoy more than those of Tiv extraction.
As Tiv engage with the outside world, Adasu noted quite early that, the Tiv turn tribalism within. He said, perhaps a Tiv is not as nice to a fellow . One may wish to know the others tar or ipaven before engaging them. In other words, Adasu noted that the relationship of a Tiv with another is basically determined by Tar and Ipaven.
Gonna those days Benue use to be a productive State based on her available natural resources, and was occupied with a strong and honest government capable of managing these natural resources to generate its revenue.
The return of democracy in Benue State 1999 all.three executive Governor only to drag the name of the state to the mud following hight level of bad governance, mismanagement of state resources or security issues as the case may be.
And all others which may affect u that we don’t know!
Until man takes ACTION! God will not Move in your Direction
Grand Commander in Chief of Benue Protesters calling on Benuelites to raise up, God have answered our honest prayers for the greater good and it’s time to fight back.
A woman has come out to accuse Pamela Anderson of being a “home wrecker”, after the former playboy model revealed this week she had gotten married to her body guard, Dan Hayhurst.
According to the woman, Anderson seduced Hayhurst (pictured above) who she married on Christmas Eve while he worked on her property in the Canadian town of Ladysmith.
She also accused the former model and actress of breaking up “a happy family of five”
On Wednesday, January 27, 2021, the 53-year-old former Baywatch star announced she had married her “bodyguard” Dan, 40, in what was her sixth wedding, to her fifth husband, saying: “I’m exactly where I need to be, in the arms of a man who loves me.”
But Dan’s ex, Carey, (pictured below) who had been living with him and bringing up his two children for the past five years, has revealed how she was blindsided by the affair and knew nothing of their marriage until she read about it online.
She said the pair started getting close early last year while she and Dan were still together before he finally moved out of their home into Anderson’s home in July.
Mum-of-one Carey, from Vancouver Island, and Dan, then a single dad, got together around five years ago and she moved in with him on the mainland in Squamish, a town north of Vancouver, helping to bring up his two young children.
Carey, 42, said: “This is not the lockdown love story which is being portrayed, it’s all a facade.
“I decided to speak out because I want people to know that my almost five-year relationship, with three children involved, ended because of the affair Pam and Dan started while he was still with me.
“It’s sad that people celebrate this and cheer them on, when it started with deceit, denials and life-shattering choices for all the people involved.
“It wasn’t this romance that happened overnight. He worked with her for over six months before any of that happened.
“He wasn’t her body-guard then, he is a handyman, she hired him to work on her house.
“We were all totally blindsided by this, it’s been so hard for us. And it’s not just me and the kids, lots of people have been hurt by them. Dan has lost friendships and business relationships because of this.”
She said: “We did everything together, like family vacations, family fishing trips, we worked on family projects together. It was always us.”
But their happy life was to change for ever after Dan was taken on as a building contractor to renovate Pamela’s home, set in five acres in Ladysmith.
He started work there in early autumn 2019 and she says her ex husband started complaining to Carey about how “crazy” Pamela was and how difficult and demanding she was to work for.
Carey said things started to change at the end of last March, with Dan spending more and more time out of the house.
She said: “The worm turned. Covid happened and it just seemed to happen overnight.
“Dan would stay at her house and not come home, and here I am taking care of the kids.
“At first he denied it when I confronted him but then, finally, I asked him, ‘Are you sleeping with Pam? He said, ‘All I’m going to say is I’ve crossed the line’.
“At first he said, ‘I want you to stay in our house. I don’t want you to go. I just need to figure things out’.
“Later he apologised to me. He said, ‘Carey, I love you. I don’t know what is going on right now. I’m not in my right head right now. I’m not in a good space’.
“He asked me to give him time to figure things out so I just let him do what he was doing.
“And there was no turning back by then. I had met Pam and had gone to dinner with her. My daughter used to work for her. I couldn’t believe it.”
Dan and Pamela’s relationship continued to develop and last July he moved out of the home he shared with Carey and moved in with Pam.
Pamela claims she and Dan had the blessing of all their family and friends for their wedding, but Carey says it’s a lie, saying: “No one was invited to the wedding.
“It doesn’t even seem like a real wedding. Everything looks so controlled.”
She added: “He can be very manipulative so in a sense they are made for each other, but I don’t see this lasting. I’d be very surprised.
“Dan and I never got married because I don’t ever want to.
“To me it’s nothing, it’s a piece of paper and it causes problems when you want to get out of it.
“And he had told me, ‘I’ll never get married again’. And then here we are, six or eight months or whatever the hell they are into their relationship and they’re married.
“I just think, ‘Wow, who are you? Who is the man I was with for five years?’ None of this makes sense.”
Carey’s daughter Denise, 21, who worked as a labourer at Pam’s home, told The Sun that when she discovered Dan’s relationship she thought to herself: “I was shocked when I learned about it.
“I just thought, ‘How can this even be a thing?’ I’m here working with them full-time and I had no idea.
“And the fact that he had a family, we were a blended family, he has two young kids and obviously she’s quite a lot older.
“What was his thought process? What was going on in his mind?
“I was so shocked. It’s something so unreal, like something straight out of the movies. I can’t believe it. Everyone thinks it’s this lockdown love story and nobody knows that there was an affair and there’s this family involved.
“And I think the hardest part is that people are being fed this one-sided fairytale story when in reality there’s so much more to it.
“It’s damaged a lot of people’s lives. It’s been really difficult for my mum.
“She totally stepped up and was a full-time mum to those kids. It’s been hard to watch her go through that.
“There was no rough patch or things being bad at home, things were completely normal throughout the entire thing until this happened.
“Pam doesn’t have the best marriage track record, that’s for sure. So when Covid is over and she can go back to travelling and whatnot, I really don’t see it working.”
Anderson married Tommy in 1995 after knowing him for just 96 hours and had two kids with him, Brandon and Dylan.
The couple split after the musician assaulted her and spent six months in jail. They divorced in 1998 but briefly reunited in 2008 before finally calling it quits again.
Her second marriage to Kid Rock only lasted one year. Husband No3 Rick Saloman married Pam in 2007.Her most recent husband is Jon Peters – the couple slit after just 12 days of marriage with Anderson saying they were never legally married.
An Ottawa nurse has tested positive for COVID-19 about two weeks after getting vaccinated.
The Nurse, Santosh Baral said he was “speechless” when his results came back positive for COVID-19 last week after a routine test.
He was among Ottawa’s front-line health-care workers to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the first week of the local distribution campaign in mid-December.
The Nurse said he received his first dose on December 18, 2020, and his second dose on Janaury 8, 2021.
A few days after he received the second injection, Baral said he tested negative for the coronavirus as part of a routine test on January 13.
But a week later, on January. 20, the test came back positive.
Baral said he is always diligent about following his workplace’s COVID-19 safety protocols and had to start scanning his memory, thinking of where he could have been exposed to the virus.
“I felt… very guilty. Maybe I missed something,” he says.
He also said he feels fine but is at home self-isolating until he is sure it is safe to return to work.
“I thank God I [don’t] have any symptoms so far, but who knows whatever is happening in my body. So definitely I have some anxiety,” Baral said.
Clinical immunologist and allergist Dr. Zainab Abdurrahman to CBC that there are a number of possibilities why Baral could have tested positive.
She said a person could be exposed to the virus before the doses take full effect as it takes up to a week to ten days after getting both vaccinations before becoming fully immune.
Abdurrahman added that while both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are 95 percent effective, “there’s a small chance that you could still catch COVID-19 after you’re fully vaccinated.”
“Although with the studies, we did see those who did get it in that small percentage after being fully immune had very mild disease. So they didn’t have as much of the severe cases of COVID and this is not unlike any other vaccine,” Abdurrahman said.
US Vice president, Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter has signed a modeling contract with IMG models after commanding attention on Inauguration Day
Emhoff, the 21-year-old daughter of Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff and his ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff, signed with IMG Models.
According to Ivan Bart, the president of IMG Models, which works with models including Bella and Gigi Hadid, Christie Brinkley, and Karlie Kloss, the decision to sign Emhoff had to do with her “authenticity”.
“It’s not really about shape, size or gender anymore,” he told The Times. “Ella communicates this moment in time. There’s a cheekiness and a joy she exudes.”
Emhoff, a fine art student at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, commanded attention after appearing at the presidential inauguration in a bedazzled Miu Miu jacket.
The president of the modelling agency also referenced Emhoff’s inauguration style, explaining that his first thought was: “Wow, she’s communicating fashion.”
Reacting after signing with the agency, considered one of the most prestigious in the world, Emhoff told the outlet that she was initially surprised because she “never saw that as being part of my timeline” when she was younger.
“I was pretty surprised when everything with IMG was happening because when I was younger, I never saw that as being part of my timeline,” she said, adding that she had her doubts about entering a world focused on appearances.
According to Emhoff, she decided to go into the modelling world after seeing a recent push for diversity, with the 21-year-old telling the outlet that she hopes to be “part of that change”.
Following the announcement, Emhoff’s mother shared her support on Twitter, where she wrote: “Very proud (but nervous) MAMA! Ella will stay true to her cheeky self with all of our support.”
The People’s Republic of China has warned that attempts by Taiwan to seek independence “means war”, days after China stepped up its military activities and flew warplanes near the island.
The warning by the communist country also comes after new US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to Taiwan.
China sees democratic Taiwan as a breakaway province and Chinese leader Jinping warned last year that he will United the Island with China by any means necessary, but Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.
Taiwan, a self governed island, is also very fortified military and an invasion by China will cost the Chinese military billions of dollars, loss of lives and ammunition, therefore will not be an easy task to pursue.
“We are seriously telling those Taiwan independence forces: those who play with fire will burn themselves, and Taiwan independence means war,” Chinese defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said at a press conference on Thursday, January 28, Chinese time.
He also defended China’s recent military activities, saying they were “necessary actions to address the current security situation in the Taiwan Strait and to safeguard national sovereignty and security”.
The US has now responded.
“We find that comment unfortunate,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters, in the first statement by the new administration on China-Taiwan relations.
Kirby added that the Pentagon “sees no reason why tensions over Taiwan need to lead to anything like confrontation”.
The new US administration is expected to maintain pressure on China over a wide range of issues including human rights, trade disputes, Hong Kong and Taiwan, amid the deteriorating relationship between the two powers.
China and Taiwan have had separate governments since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has long tried to limit Taiwan’s international activities and both have vied for influence in the Pacific region.
Tensions have increased in recent years and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to take the island back
Taiwan’s democratically elected government has strong commercial and informal links with many countries.
Like most nations, the US has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but a US law does require it to provide the island with the means to defend itself if it is attacked
21-year-old porn star Belle Delphine has revealed that she makes $1.2m per month from selling her bath water and used condoms on OnlyFans.
This comes just 6 months after she announced that she was planning on making a “big bag” on OnlyFans.
Belle Delphine rose to fame on Instagram and YouTube where her sexy snaps attracted millions of followers.
The gamer turned her mind to pulling in cash and started selling everything from her own bathwater to used condoms.
Her sales caused her to be permanently banned from Instagram in July 2019.
Belle then began selling semi-nude or partially censored imagery on OnlyFans.
The young woman recently told Insider that she plans to “milk” her porn career indefinitely.
She has words of warning to those who are considering following in her footsteps though.
The influencer warned other young people who are looking to make major cash on OnlyFans that her pre-existing fanbase is the reason for her popularity.
She said: “People can see me and see my numbers and think, ‘Oh, she’s doing really well so that means I can do really well’.
“For every one successful girl you see, there are thousands of other girls working really hard and not earning anything.”
Belle has said that if her X-rated content stops doing so well she would consider earning money via other channels like Twitch streaming.
President Muhammadu Buhari has written the National Assembly to seek the confirmation of the recently appointed service chiefs.
This was confirmed in a statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Babajide Omoworare, days after some Nigerians including lawyers pointed out that the appointment of service chiefs is not complete without it passing through the national assembly.
The letter addressed to Senate President Ahmad Lawan, was dated January 27. Read the full statement by Mr Omoworare below;
BUHARI SEEKS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY’S CONFIRMATION OF SERVICE CHIEFS
President Muhammadu Buhari has communicated the appointment of the Service Chiefs to the National Assembly and has sought for the confirmation of the said appointment by the Senate through his letter to the Senate President dated 27th January 2021. This was done in furtherance of Section 18 (1) of the Armed Forces Act Cap. A.20 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
Contrary to fears expressed in some quarters that President Muhammadu Buhari has “bypassed” the National Assembly in the process of appointment of the Service Chiefs and that he has no intention of seeking consideration and confirmation of their appointment, Mr. President upon nomination for appointment sought confirmation of the Senate for the appointment of Major General Lucky Irabor, Major General Ibrahim Attahiru, Rear Admiral Awwal Gambo and Air Vice Marshal Isiaka Amao as Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Naval Staff and Chief of Air Staff respectively, vide his aforementioned letter.
It is on record that this same procedure was adopted when the immediate past Service Chiefs were appointed. Upon announcement of the appointment of the then Service Chiefs – Major General Abayomi Olonisakin (Chief of Defence Staff), Major General Tukur Buratai (Chief of Army Staff), Rear Admiral Ibok-Efe Ibas (Chief of Naval Staff) and Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar (Chief of Air Staff), Mr. President had written the 8th Senate on 14th July 2015 for confirmation. Whilst the correspondence was read on the floor of the Senate on 28th July 2015, consideration and confirmation of the appointments was carried out at the Committee of the Whole on 4th August 2015.
It will be recalled that the National Assembly will only resume plenary sessions on 9th February 2021 when hopefully Mr. President’s communication for consideration and confirmation of the nomination for appointment of the Service Chiefs would be undertaken.
Before this administration, confirmation of Service Chiefs were not sought and obtained from the National Assembly in consonance with the provisions of Section 18 (1) of the Armed Forces Act Cap. A.20 LFN. We are aware that in Keyamo Vs. President & Ors, the Federal High Court set aside the Armed Forces Modification Order 2008 (purportedly made under Section 315 [2) of the Constitution) on 1st July 2013 and ruled that the confirmation of the National Assembly must be sought for the appointment of the Service Chiefs. We are in compliance with the spirit and letters of both the statute and case law.
Signed: Senator Babajide Omoworare (ssa-p/nass/senate) Friday, January 29, 2021
A burglar broke into a pub, drank some of the supplies there and went on a wrecking spree before falling asleep.
30-year-old Marius Petrikas, also know as Algis Likso, was found hours later passed out on a sofa in the bar by the owner after he heard snoring.
He had caused thousands of pounds of damage to the Newcastle pub by pulling things off the wall and barricading himself in with beer barrels, Chronicle Live reports.
The owner, already struggling due to the impact of coronavirus, was left with losses of more than £21,000.
Petrikas used a metal bar to break into the bar, called City Tavern, in the early hours of August 5 last year.
CCTV shows him helping himself to a drink before he went on a wrecking spree for no apparent reason.
Alec Burns, prosecuting, said: “He was discovered at 6am that morning when the landlord found the door insecure.
“He could hear snoring so called the police, who attended and found the defendant asleep.”
The prosecutor said: “He had wrecked the pub and barricaded himself using beer barrels and furniture.
“He pulled a camera off the wall, in the cellar he pulled a cooling unit off the wall.”
The pub was so badly damaged it could not open until repairs had been carried out.
Owner David King said the final loss to the business was £21,450.
Petrikas, of Killingworth, North Tyneside, admitted burglary.
He was also in breach of a community order imposed for affray, assault and criminal damage worth more than £5,000 in Darlington
On that occasion, he trashed his home after being told to leave by the landlord.
He threw furniture out of the window, barricaded himself in and police tasered him six times but it had no effect.
He eventually jumped out of the window, before running at officers, biting one of them as they arrested him.
Recorder Ben Nolan QC sentenced him to 12 months in jail after the pub rampage.
Larry King’s estranged wife, Shawn Southwick King has said that the TV icon died of sepsis, not his recent battle with coronavirus.
The journalist died last Saturday in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, two weeks after being moved out of intensive care, where he was being treated after testing positive for Covid-19.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, his widow revealed his cause of death, saying: “It was an infection, it was sepsis. Well, he was finally ready to go, I will tell you that.
“You know, he never wanted to go but his sweet little body was just, it had just been hit so many times with so many things and once we heard the word Covid, all of our hearts just sank.”
She continued: “But he beat it, you know, he beat it, but it did take its toll and then the unrelated infection finally is what took him, but boy, he was not gonna go down easily.”
Shawn, who was married to King from 1997 until 2019, confirmed she was able to speak with Larry, the father of her sons, Chance and Cannon, on video call before his death.
She continued: “We were able to do FaceTime in the hospital and it was hard for him to talk, but the one message that he wanted to make sure I heard was, ‘I love you, take care of the boys’.”
Shawn was King’s seventh wife and they were in the midst of a divorce at the time of his death.
A Swiss lawyer has revealed how he helped the Nigerian government recover billions of dollars stolen by the late General Sabi Abacha.
After looting Nigeria’s reserves, Abacha who ruled from 1993 until his death in 1998, died before spending his loot, prompting an international treasure hunt that has lasted for decades.
Enrico Monfrini, said he received a phone call in September 1999 from former Nigeria president Olusegun Obasanjo asking if he could help recover the stolen funds.
Monfrini says a high ranking government official was then sent to Geneva by Obasanjo, to recruit him to get hold of the money looted by Abacha.
“He called me in the middle of the night, he asked me if I could come to his hotel, he had something of importance.” Monfrini told BBC’s Clare Spencer.
“I said: ‘It’s a bit late but OK.'”
“He asked me: ‘Can you find the money and can you block the money? Can you arrange that this money be returned to Nigeria?’
“I said: ‘Yes.’ But in fact I didn’t know much about the work at that time. And I had to learn very quickly, so I did.”
Monfrini says the Nigerian police then handed him the details of a few closed Swiss bank accounts, which appeared to be holding some of the money Abacha and his associates had diverted.
He said police investigations in November 1998 found that more than $1.5bn (£1.1bn) was moved by Abacha and his associates.
He said Abacha used sleek methods in diverting the funds.
He said one way was that Abacha would tell an adviser to make a request to him for money for a vague security issue, he will then sign off the request which the adviser would then take to the central bank, which would hand out the money in cash, that will then be taken to Abacha’s house.
Some money was even taken in dollar notes “by the truckload”, Mr Monfrini wrote.
Monfrini said another method included awarding state contracts to friends at inflated prices and then keeping the difference and demanding foreign companies pay huge amounts before being allowed to operate in the country.
“The documents showing the history of the accounts gave me a few links to other accounts,” said Mr Monfrini.
Monfrey said he took some of his documents and information to the Swiss attorney general.
Monfrini says he put it to Swiss authorities that the Abacha family and their associates formed a criminal organisation which allowed the Swiss government to take a different view towards the different bank accounts where money was stored.
The attorney general issued a general alert to all the banks in Switzerland demanding that they disclose the existence of any accounts opened under the Abachas’ names and aliases.
“In 48 hours, 95% of the banks and other financial institutions declared what they had which seemed to belong to the family.”
This led to other Banks all over the world releasing information about Abacha’s stored funds according to Monfrini.
“Banks would deliver documents to the prosecutor in Geneva and I would do the job of the prosecutor because he didn’t have time to do it,” Monfrini told the BBC.
“We would find out on each account exactly where the money came from and/or where the money went to.
“Showing the ins and outs on these bank accounts gave me further information regarding other payments received from other countries and sent to other countries.
“So it was like a snowball. It started with a few accounts, and then a large amount of accounts, which in turn created a snowball effect indicating a huge international operation.
“Bank accounts and the documents that go with them talk a lot.
“We had so much proof of different money being sent here and there, Bahamas, Nassau, Cayman Islands – you name it.”
“Nobody seems to understand how much work it entails. I have to pay so many people, so many accountants, so many other lawyers in different countries.”
According to Monfrini, he said he agreed with the Nigerian government to get a commission of 4% on the money sent back to Nigeria and according to him his percentage was “very cheap”.
He added that locating the money was one thing but sending it back to Nigeria became very hard because the Abacha family were fighting tooth and nail.
“The Abachas were fighting like dogs. They were appealing about everything we did. This delayed the process for a very long time.”
Swiss politicians then started deliberating if it was necessary to send the money back as it would be stolen again.
Monfrini wrote in 2008 that $508m found in the Abacha family’s many Swiss bank accounts was sent from Switzerland to Nigeria between 2005 and 2007.
By 2018, the amount Switzerland had returned to Nigeria had reached more than $1bn.
He then revealed that some countries were slow and frustrated him when it came to returning the stolen funds.
In June 2014, Liechtenstein did eventually send Nigeria $277m.
“Liechtenstein, for instance, was a catastrophe. It was a nightmare.”
Six years later, in May 2020, $308m held in accounts based in the Channel Island of Jersey was also returned to Nigeria.
Monfrini says he is still expecting $30m he says is sitting in the UK to be returned, along with $144m in France and a further $18m in Jersey.
That should be it, “but you never know”, he says.
In total, he says his work secured the retyrn of just more than $2.4bn.
“At the beginning people said Abacha stole at least $4-$5bn. I don’t believe it was the case. I believe we more or less took the most, took a very large chunk, of what they had.”
Monfrini says he is happy now that the Abacha family are no longer as wealthy as they used to be and he is satisfied with his work.
“They are not swimming in money like they used to do in the past.”
“When I speak to my very many children about this case, I tell them I found money and I blocked the money, I persuaded the authorities to go after these people and get the money back to the country for the good of the Nigerian people.
Hollywood icon and award-winning actress, Cicely Tyson who distinguished herself in theater, film, and television, has died at the age of 96.
According to a statement from her manager, Larry Thompson, she died on Thursday afternoon, January 28.
“With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon. At this time, please allow the family their privacy,” Thompson said in a statement.
“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing. Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”
The statement did not reveal the cause of death.
The actress chronicled her lengthy career in her first memoir, “Just As I Am,” which was just released on Tuesday, two days before her death.
Tyson made her film debut with a small role in 1957’s “Twelve Angry Men” and her formal debut in the 1959 Sidney Poitier film “Odds Against Tomorrow,” followed by “The Comedians,” “The Last Angry Man,” “A Man Called Adam” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.”
In 1974, she starred in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” a television movie based on a novel by Ernest Gaines. Tyson was the title character, a woman born into slavery who lives well into the 20th century and takes part in African Americans’ struggles for civil rights.
She won two Emmys for the role, best actress in a drama and actress of the year. During her career, she would win a total of three Emmy Awards out of 15 nominations.
Throughout her career Tyson refused to play drug addicts, prostitutes or maids, roles she thought demeaning to Black women. She played former slaves, civil rights icons, sharecroppers, truthtellers, mothers, bringing a sense of depth, nobility, and grace to every character.
Her filmography includes some of the most celebrated movies and television shows featuring Black women in major roles: “Sounder” (1972), “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1974), “Roots” (1977), “The Marva Collins Story” (1981), “The Women of Brewster Place” (1989), and “The Help” (2011).
In November 2018, Tyson became the first African-American woman to receive an honorary Oscar. She was also inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and was chosen to be inducted into the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame in 2020.
Tyson married jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in 1981, but their union ended in divorce in 1988.
In 2013, she reflected on her one and only marriage in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, describing her relationship with the jazz legend as “tumultuous” but one that also included “some of the most incredible moments in my life.”
The death of the renowned actress drew an outpouring of tributes from Hollywood stars and far beyond.
Celebrities around the world are paying tribute to Emmy award-winning actress Cicely Tyson, who died at the age of 96 on Thursday, January 28.
“With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon. At this time, please allow the family their privacy,” her manager, Larry Thompson said in a statement.
The statement did not reveal the cause of her death.
The Legendary American actress died two days after her first memoir, “Just As I Am,” which chronicled her lengthy career, was released.
Celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Barrack Obama, Michelle Obama, Whoopi Goldberg, Micheal B Jordan, Zendaya, Amanda Gorman, Gayle King, Tika Sumpter, Levar Burton, Sherri Shepherd, Robin Thede, Martin Luther King III, Tyler Perry, and many others have taken to their respective social media accounts to pay tributes to the actress.
‘In her extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson was one of the rare award-winning actors whose work on the screen was surpassed only by what she was able to accomplish off of it. She had a heart unlike any other—and for 96 years, she left a mark on the world that few will ever match,’ Former US president, Barrack Obama wrote on Twitter.
In her extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson was one of the rare award-winning actors whose work on the screen was surpassed only by what she was able to accomplish off of it. She had a heart unlike any other—and for 96 years, she left a mark on the world that few will ever match. pic.twitter.com/JRsL3zlKtP
‘What struck me every time I spent time with Cicely Tyson was not necessarily her star power—though that was evident enough—it was her humanity. Just by walking into a room, she had this way of elevating everyone around her.’ ‘She was the personification of beauty, grace, wisdom, and strength, carrying forward a flame that not only guided her for 96 pathbreaking years but lit the way for so many of us.’ ‘I’ll miss her dearly, but I smile knowing how many people she inspired, just like me, to walk a little taller, speak a little more freely, and live a little bit more like God intended,’ Michelle Obama wrote on Twitter.
What struck me every time I spent time with Cicely Tyson was not necessarily her star power—though that was evident enough—it was her humanity. Just by walking into a room, she had this way of elevating everyone around her. pic.twitter.com/o6VAV63wqd
‘The world lost a trailblazer today. #CicelyTyson paved the way for so many artists after her and beautifully portrayed iconic roles such as Harriett Tubman and my mother, Coretta Scott King. Rest in peace, Cicely. You will be missed,’ Martin Luther King III wrote on Twitter.
The world lost a trailblazer today. #CicelyTyson paved the way for so many artists after her and beautifully portrayed iconic roles such as Harriett Tubman and my mother, Coretta Scott King. Rest in peace, Cicely. You will be missed. pic.twitter.com/TMsHzWhpFL
“This one hurts, today we honor and celebrate the life of one of the greatest to ever do it. Thank you Cicely Tyson. Rest in great power,” Zendaya wrote on Twitter.
This one hurts, today we honor and celebrate the life of one of the greatest to ever do it. Thank you Cicely Tyson. Rest in great power. pic.twitter.com/vwchWT5512
“I’m devastated. My heart is just broken. I loved you so much!! You were everything to me! You made me feel loved and seen and valued in a world where there is still a cloak of invisibility for us dark chocolate girls. You gave me permission to dream….because it was only in my dreams that I could see the possibilities in myself. I’m not ready for you to be my angel yet. But…I also understand that it’s only when the last person who has a memory of you dies, that you’ll truly be dead. In that case, you will be immortal. Thank you for shifting my life. Thank you for the long talks. Thank you for loving me. Rest well,” Viola Davis wrote on Instagram.
‘I was sitting at the table working when I got this overwhelming feeling to watch Miss Jane Pittman. I hadn’t seen the movie in years. I didn’t even understand the feeling to turn it on, but I did anyway. Not 12 minutes into the movie my phone rang. It was Oprah calling to tell me that Cicely had died. This one brought me to my knees! She was the grandmother I never had and the wisdom tree that I could always sit under to fill my cup. My heart breaks in one beat, while celebrating her life in the next. To think that she lived for 96 years and I got to be a part of the last 16 brings me great joy. She called me son. Well, today your son grieves your loss and will miss our long talks, your laughter from your belly, and your very presence. Always so regal, always so classy, always a lady, always a queen. Every time we would talk I would ask, “How are you?” and you would say, “I’m still here. He must have something he wants me to do.” Well, I think it’s safe to say you have done all you were put here to do, and we are all better for it,’ Tyler Perry wrote on Instagram.
The German Government has warned against giving AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to people older than 65 years.
The warning from Germany comes amid a bitter dispute between the European Union and the drugmaker over delayed supplies of the vaccine to European countries.
The EU has ordered 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which could be approved for use by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Friday with an option to purchase an additional 100 million doses.
According to the Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) at Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the country’s main public health authority, there is insufficient data on the effectiveness of the vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, for this age group.
“Due to the small number of study participants in the age group 65 years, no conclusion can be made regarding efficacy and safety in the elderly.” A statement by the STIKO and RKI released on Thursday, January 28, says.
This vaccine is now recommended by STIKO only for persons aged 18-64 years,” the panel said in its recommendation.
Responding to the announcement, an AstraZeneca spokesperson said “latest analyses of clinical trial data for the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine support efficacy in the over 65 years age group.”
AstraZeneca is awaiting a regulatory decision by the European Union medicines regulator, the spokesperson added.
AstraZeneca has said it can’t deliver as many doses as the EU expected, saying the EU ordered late.
Responding to the German announcement, MHRA Chief Executive Dr. June Raine said “current evidence does not suggest any lack of protection against Covid-19 in people aged 65 or over.”
“The data we have shows that the vaccine produces a strong immune response in the over-65s. More data is continually becoming available for this age group and our Public Assessment Report, available on our website, will be updated to reflect this,” her statement added.
The World Health Organization on Thursday January 28, announced that at least 30 percent of the African population will be vaccinated against Coronavirus before the end of the year.
AFP reported that WHO Africa’s immunisation coordinator Richard Mihigo said the WHO-backed Covax vaccine sharing facility and the AU’s African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), would jointly deliver enough doses to vaccinate between 30 to 35 percent of the continent’s population this year.
Speaking during a virtual press briefing, Mihigo said;
“Given the latest developments within the Covax facility, there is a very good prospect that the objective to supply 600 million doses by the end of 2021 will definitely be reached.
“The Covax vaccines will cover at least 20 percent of the population, with the rest “complemented” by AVATT. “
While the AU has so far secured 270 million doses through AVATT, Mihigo warned “some of those may not become available soon” and that the initiative could “realistically” only expect to reach between 10 and 15 percent of the continent in 2021.
He added that WHO was exploring “additional candidates”, with particularly high hopes for Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine. The health agency cordinator also revealed that the first Covax doses were likely to reach the continent by mid-February, and that “by March we will definitely see most of the countries start vaccinating”.
Mihigo said;
“It is a slow start but we are expecting that in the coming months things are going to ramp up.”
While it is estimated that Africa will need 1.5 billion vaccine doses to immunise 60 percent of its 1.3 billion inhabitants (the threshold for herd immunity against COVID-19), only a small handful of African countries have started vaccinating their populations, including Guinea, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
The continent has fallen behind in the global vaccine scramble and most African countries are relying on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union (AU) to shoulder at least part of their innoculation campaigns — providing vaccines and helping to finance their roll out.
A married teacher has been found guilty of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
Kandice Barber, 35, of Wendover, Buckinghamshire, was tried for a second time over allegations she had sex with a 15-year-old boy in a field while she was working as a school cover supervisor.
A jury at Amersham Law Courts found Barber guilty of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and not guilty of two further counts of the same offences.
The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, previously said he was “worried and scared” when rumours of their alleged relationship became a topic of discussion around his school.
A court previously heard that Barber had told the boy she would “bring him down with her” if the relationship was discovered.
The unidentified schoolboy reportedly claimed encounters include the married mum performing oral sex in a wooded area. But the 35-year-old denied that the encounters ever took place.
In cross-examination, the boy could not name the specific dates when alleged sexual activity had taken place between them.
Barber denied three counts of causing or inciting a child aged under 16 years to engage in a sexual act.
Jurors took 10 hours and 39 minutes to reach their verdicts today.
Her delivery worker husband, Daniel, who was watching proceedings remotely in a side room, slammed the guilty verdict: ‘It’s a joke.’ When Barber emerged at the court entrance he grabbed her hand.
As the two walked hand in hand to a court office, a judge then ordered them to wait until a date is set for her sentencing on Friday or next Monday.
In a previous trial, she was convicted of sexual communication with a child between those same dates and causing a child to watch a sexual act by a person in a position of trust from October 20 2018 to January 31, 2019.
Jennie Laskar-Hall of the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘Barber used her position as a teacher and as a trusted member of the community to abuse a teenage boy in her care.
‘The messages were crucial to our case as they showed Barber had initiated contact with the teenager and pursued him, even threatening him when the school investigation began.
‘Denying what she had done, Barber has forced the teenager and his family to go through a trial, and I want to commend him for providing the vital evidence we needed to secure today’s conviction.’
The ex-boyfriend of the disgraced teaching assistant Kandice previously explained how their two-years-old relationship ended over her sexual demands, declaring ‘It was too excessive’.
Speaking to MailOnline, the former partner, who didn’t want to be named, said: ‘When I heard about the video and picture she’d sent this lad and where they had sexual contact, it reminded me of our relationship. I thought that sounds like Kandice.
‘That was the sort of stuff she was into and it didn’t surprise me at all but what shocked me was that she did it with a kid. I can’t believe how stupid she’s been.’
According to him, they met on dating site, Plenty of Fish, and their relationship was dominated by her ‘huge sex drive’ with her demanding sex up to six times per day, often in unusual places.
He recalled: ‘She liked doing it outside, sometimes in the car, the garden or in woods. We’d be driving somewhere, and she’d say, ‘pull over, I’m feeling horny.’ It just got too much for me. Everyone has got their personal needs and that sort of stuff got her excited but by the end of it I couldn’t be bothered, I’d just had enough. It was too excessive.’
He added: ‘Kandice is a wonderful girl, a great mother and overall, very law abiding. During our time together she never got so much as a parking ticket. But when it came to sex, she was just incredibly frisky and that’s what got her into all this trouble.’
He revealed that Barber was a pole dancer who regularly performed for him in skimpy clothing in the garage of her home in Kent, where she lived at the time.
He recalled: ‘Kandice said she pole danced for fitness reasons but there was always more to it. She’d wear hot pants and a sexy bra when she would do it and we’d often end up making love afterwards.”
‘Sometimes she’d have her friends over and they’d put on a show. They were all very sexy girls and I used to quite enjoy that.’
The former boyfriend also said their relationship came to an end after he discovered on her mobile phone, sexy pictures and videos that she had taken of herself. In the images, he claimed she was posing suggestively either naked or wearing skimpy clothing and in one video, she was pleasuring herself with a sex toy.
When he confronted her, he said she admitted to sending them to other men and also confessed to cheating on him with somebody she met at the gym.
He said: ‘I was really angry and hurt. Our relationship was already struggling but when she confessed to what she had been getting up to, I knew we would not be able to carry on.
‘We actually parted on quite good terms, but I was relieved that it was all over. I found Kandice a bit freaky when it came to sex and that actually put me off her.’
Apple has announced that it’s sales have hit another record, as families bought it’s latest phones, laptops and gadgets during the Christmas period.
Sales in the last three months of 2020 hit more than $111bn (£81bn) – up 21% from the prior year as the pandemic forced more activity online, fuelling demand for new technology.
Apple now counts more than 1.65 billion active devices globally, including more than 1 billion iPhones.
Apple said the record follows the release of its new iPhone 12 suite of phones, which convinced a record number of people to switch to the company or upgrade from older models.
The firm also said growth in China was particularly strong, helped in part by demand for phones with new 5G networks.
Sales in the firm’s greater China region, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, jumped 57%. In Europe, sales roles 17%, and they rose 11% in the Americas.
“The products are doing very well all around the world,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer. “As we look ahead into the March quarter, we’re very optimistic.”
As other companies have struggled to survive, Big Tech has flourished during the pandemic.
There are other reasons for some of these incredible figures. Certainly it seems iPhone enthusiasts were holding out for the new 5G enabled iPhone12.
Covid-19 means people are spending more time indoors buying things online, watching things online and chatting online.
Facebook on Wednesday January 27, also announced that increased online shopping during the pandemic helped lift ad revenue in the quarter by 30%.
The number of people active on its apps – which also include WhatsApp and Instagram – also rose to 2.6 billion daily, up 15% compared to 2019.
A Pennsylvania father and his family have died in a suspected murder-suicide just weeks after the husband purchased a gun.
Deepak Kulkarni, 50, and his wife, Arti Adya Kulkarni, 47, with their sons Shubham, 14, and Sharvil, 7, were found dead in the basement of their Chester County home on Sunday.
The county coroner said all four of them died from gunshot wounds.
West Whiteland Police Detective Scott Pezick said it’s unclear who was behind the murders but confirmed that Mr. Kulkarni had bought a gun two weeks prior to their bodies being discovered.
According to authorities, relatives from out-of-state called police to request a welfare check. Once inside, officers found four family members dead
Law enforcement is investigating the case as a murder-suicide.
“There’s no indication that anything that happened was caused by somebody outside of that residence,” said West Whiteland Twp. Police Det. Scott Pezick.
Arti’s brother Anand Adya said there were ‘red flags’ in the months leading up to their deaths. He also said they had tried to make plans with his sister and her family, only for them to be cancelled at the last minute.
“It was obvious, she wanted to meet, but he didn’t let us.” Adya said. “I would ask Arti if everything is OK, and she would never say anything.’’
Adya said that his sister would refuse to give them even an ‘’inkling that things weren’t perfect’’ in her marriage.
He described his sister as the “most devoted wife, and an even more devoted mother, sister and daughter”.
“They definitely did not deserve this,” he told the paper.
Kulkarni worked as a software analyst at Education Management Systems, according to his LinkedIn profile. His wife was also thought to be in the same field, but worked as an application developer, most recently for the University of Pennsylvania.
West Whiteland police and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office are still investigating.
Two gay men were on Thursday January 28, caned 77 times each after they caught having sex in Indonesia.
Dozens of people witnessed the men, aged 27 and 29, get punished as a team of five enforcers wearing robes and hoods took turns to flog the men.
The men were arrested back in November after residents became suspicious and reported them to Islamic religious police. Police later broke into their rented room where they were caught having sex, said Heru Triwijanarko, Aceh’s acting Sharia police chief.
During their punishment, the mother of one man reportedly fainted at the sight of her son being whipped.
Each man was flogged 77 times, three lashes less than their original sentence because they had already served three months in prison, Mail Online reports.
Four others were lashed between 17 and 40 times on the same day, for either drinking alcohol or meeting members of the opposite sex.
One woman was caned 17 times after being found with her boyfriend.
‘Islamic sharia enforcement is final, no matter who it is, and even visitors must respect local norms,’ public order official Heru Triwijanarko told AFP.
The official said he suspected ‘several locations for homosexual practice’ in the region which are ‘difficult to reveal’. He called on the public to report their suspicions of behaviour which breaks sharia.
Some of the Chibok girls who were abducted and held by Boko Haram insurgents since 2014 have reportedly escaped.
A parent told Daily Trust that some of them were contacted by officials handling the girls disappearance and that the affected parents might be invited to Maiduguri on a later date.
Halima Ali who was married off to a Boko Haram commander under the instruction of the insurgents’ leader Abubakar Shekau few months after their abduction from their boarding school in Chibok, is believed to be one of the escapees.
It was gathered that after the news broke, friends and family members trooped to the family house of Halima to congratulate the family on the good news.
Secretary of Chibok Parents Association, Lawal Zannah also disclosed that he was informed that some of the girls had escaped but is yet ascertain the number.
Zannah said;
“We heard that some of our girls have escaped from the forest, but we are yet to get the detail about their number.”
Maryam Ali (Halima’s sister), Amina Ali, Rakiya Ntsiha and Solomi Titus were some of the Chibok girls who escaped before the release of 21 and then 82 following negotiation with Boko Haram, making a total of 107.
A touching note a Twitter user got from his 6-year-old daughter on her birthday has left many Nigerians emotional.
According to @fisayo_taiwo, he got the note from his daughter before she left for school. The girl who recently turned 6, recounted how her father promised to buy her an educational tablet on her birthday.
She however thoughtfully noted that he can’t because he doesn’t have the money at the moment. The little girl went on to ask him to sell the chicken which was meant for her birthday, and used the proceeds to buy her the tablet.
In this article I’m going to go over the steps on How To Restrict Internet Access Using Group Policy (GPO). This can be especially useful for KIOSKS, lab computers, or even certain employees that spend way too much time on Youtube or other social media. The way to block it is essentially done by using a proxy server that points to the localhost. Since one won’t exist, it will show a proxy error, thus effectively blocking access to websites you don’t approve of.
This was recently the case for me, I had to block internet access to a Windows 10 user so I decided what a perfect time to share with you the steps that it takes. I should mention that the GPO works for Server 2016 as well as Server 2012R2. It is a user policy and it works with other browsers.
How To Restrict Internet Access Using Group Policy (GPO)
Now let’s walk through the steps to restrict internet access using group policy. I’m going to assume you already created the Organization Unit that you want to apply the policy to so we can skip that part.
If you would rather watch how this is configured, there is a video demo at the bottom of this article.
Open up Group Policy Management Console (GPMC).
Create a New Group Policy Object and name it Restrict Internet Access.
Edit and navigate to: User Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Registry and create a New Registry Item.
There are 4 registry items we need to create/update: ProxyEnable, ProxyServer, ProxyOverride, AutoDetect
The EnableProxy key will check the box to force the browser to use the proxy settings.
Under the General Tab for the New Registry Properties:
Action: Update. This will also create the reg key if it doesn’t exist.
The next reg key will allow you to bypass the proxy server and let you view sites. Typically, you should allow your own domain name so the users can gain access to internal links and any sub-domains if applicable.
With those 4 registry settings implemented it should look like this once it has all been added.
Testing the Restrict Internet GPO
Once you add those registry keys you can see that within Internet Explorer -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings -> the proxy settings we applied are now set. The only problem is that anyone can come in and simply overwrite the settings. Let’s fix that!
So still within Group Policy let’s navigate to User Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer set the following.
Disable Changing Automatic Configuration Settings: Set to Enabled
Prevent Changing Proxy Settings: Set to Enabled
On a computer with the policy applied you will now see that the same settings are greyed out and the user is getting a proxy server isn’t responding error.
Block Internet Access with Group Policy (GPO) Video Demo
I hope this post was informative and gave you an easy to follow, step by step guide on How To Restrict Internet Access Using Group Policy (GPO).
Streaming giant, Netflix has announced that the drama series ‘Bridgerton’ is its most watched series ever as 82 million households around the world tuned into the show in its first 28 days online, surpassing the company’s own projections.
According to Netflix, the company measures a view as any piece of content watched for at least two minutes.
Netflix said Bridgerton had made the top 10 in every country it operates in except Japan, and had propelled the books it was written from into the New York Times bestseller list for the first time.
The period drama hit the number one spot in 83 countries, including the US, UK, India, France and Brazil.
The film was welcomed globally as many fans turned to the show at the end of a year marked by coronavirus.
The film series was adapted from a series of historical romance novels by author Julia Quinn, the drama follows members of the Bridgerton family as they navigate London’s high society in the 1800s.
Director Shonda Rhimes was widely praised for her “colour-blind casting” which put black actors in roles traditionally done by white actors.
Bridgerton star Phoebe Dynevor described the news as “utterly insane”.
“I’m SO proud of the incredible team behind this show! And thank you guys for loving it,” the 25-year-old actor, who played Daphne Bridgerton, wrote on Instagram.
The previous record for most-watched debut series on the platform was held by fantasy drama The Witcher, which Netflix said was watched by 76 million households in its first 28 days.
Jinny Howe, vice-president of original series at Netflix, said Bridgerton “defies tradition, and demonstrates that period dramas are not limited in scope or audience”.
“The empowerment of people of colour and women made Bridgerton feel accessible and contemporary, resonating with audiences all around the world,” she wrote in a blog post.
Seattle Seahawks player Chad Wheeler was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence after beating his girlfriend till she bled.
Wheeler was arrested Saturday night, Jan 24, and charged with felony domestic violence, according to the Seattle Times.
He was released from King County Jail on Tuesday morning, Jan 26, on $400,000 bond.
King County police responded to a call late Saturday night from a frantic woman who said she was locked in a bathroom following a “physical fight with her boyfriend.”
Police responded to the address and found the woman suffering from a dislocated arm, and other injuries.
She also told police that Wheeler strangled her until she lost consciousness.
A friend of Wheeler’s girlfriend shared a photo of her horrific injuries in a post online on Tuesday, Jan 26.
Then on Wed, Jan 27, the friend claimed Wheeler continued to eat dinner while his girlfriend lay motionless on the floor.
Wheeler was not cooperative with police upon their arrival, according to a police spokesman.
The Seahawks released a statement Monday night, saying the team is “Aware of the situation and still gathering information.”
Tim Robbins has split from his much younger wife Gratiela Brancusi.
The American actor and producer, 62, filed for divorce at a Los Angeles courthouse on Wednesday, January 28, but it’s unclear when he married the Romanian-born beauty, according to TMZ.
Tim is believed to be around 33 years older than Gratiela, who graduated from the University of Bucharest in 2012.
The pair were first linked romantically in February 2018 when The Shawshank Redemption star brought Brancusi to the premiere of his HBO show.
In November 2019, the brunette beauty was pictured wearing a diamond sparkler on her ring finger while posing next to the Castle Rock actor at the Dark Waters premiere.
Robbins was previously in a relationship with Susan Sarandon. The two met on the set of the 1988 film Bill Durham and have two children together, sons Miles, 28, and John “Jack” Henry, 31 before going their separate ways in December 2009 after 23 years together.
Authorities in China have introduced anal swabs as a new type of coronavirus test that could detect the virus more accurately as they struggle to contain rising infections ahead of the Lunar New Year celebrations.
This comes after local outbreaks in the country led to China shutting off many of its northern cities.
Before, coronavirus tests were mostly being carried out with nose and throat swabs.
However, the new anal test involves a swab being inserted around two to three centimetres (0.8 to 1.2 inches) into the rectum and being rotated multiple times. The swab is then taken out and sealed in a sample container, a process reported to take around 10 seconds.
Li Tongzeng, a senior doctor from Beijing’s Youan hospital, says the anal swab method “can increase the detection rate of infected people”.
He says this is because virus traces remain longer in the anus than in the respiratory tract, where you collect nasal and throat swabs.
He told CCTV: “We found that some asymptomatic patients tend to recover quickly. It’s possible that there will be no trace of the virus in their throat after three to five days.
“But the virus lasts longer from the samples taken from the patient’s digestive tract and excrement, compared to the ones taken from the respiratory tract”.
News of the new anal swabs has been met with criticism from some experts.
Yang Zhanqiu, a deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told state media, Global Times that nasal and throat swabs remain more efficient tests as the virus is a respiratory disease.
He adds: “There have been cases concerning the coronavirus testing positive in a patient’s excrement, but no evidence has suggested it had been transmitted through one’s digestive system”.
Chief Olu Falae, chieftain of Afenifere, a Yoruba socio-cultural group, has narrated how Fulani herdsmen attacked his farm in Ondo State after kidnapping him and killing his security guard, identified only as Ayo.
Falae, a former secretary to the military government of Ibrahim Babangida, said that the killer herdsmen butchered his farm guard and took away his heart and rifle, which was registered with the police.
Speaking during an interview, Falae, a former Finance Minister, said: “Today is exactly 32 years and two weeks that I started operating here. And the cattle and their owners became a veritable threat or tool for harassment in the last four, five years. At first, they would come in the night to drink water. We were tolerant and they did not stay here.
“We told them, just drink water and go; I did not allow them. Later, they would come in the night, eat our maize and go. I complained to their people more than 10 times. Later still, elements of the same people kidnapped me.
“When people say they were Fulani kidnappers, they ask you, how do you know they are (Fulani)? But everybody knows a Fulani man. Fulani himself knows himself. They are not children. When they were brought to court, they said they were Fulani themselves and most of them were jailed by the court.
“I have been at the receiving end a lot of times. After I was kidnapped, they came back and killed one of the guards – Ayo. They killed him, opened his chest and took away his heart.
“The double-barrelled gun, they took it away from him and killed him. It is still an unresolved murder case with the police.
“Is it economic? I am an economist myself. They burnt the non-crop area because the grass was already dry. Cows don’t eat dry grass. They burnt it so that fresh grass will grow. They were already breeding my grass as if it was their land.”
Falae noted that a number of other herdsmen vandalised farms not for the purpose of grazing their cows but out of malice and deliberate sabotage.
“Last year, they burnt my oil palm farm. I videoed it to the Commissioner of Police. I played it also at the Afenifere meeting.
“Why did they do that? To do something that does not enhance their own welfare. I believe they have malice against me. They hate the farmers,” Falae added.
The remains of former Ghanaian President, Jerry Rawlings, have been laid to rest.
Rawlings was buried with full military honors on Wednesday, January 27 after a state funeral that was attended by Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo and representatives of world leaders.
Late Rawlings died in November 2020. He was 73-years-old. He held power twice in Ghana, first as a military ruler and later as elected president.
Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson, 52, is married for the 6th time, though she insists her last wedding was a ‘mock’ wedding and this is her 5th.
On Jan. 27, 2021, Anderson told The Daily Mail she’d married her bodyguard Dan Hayhurst on Christmas Eve in an intimate ceremony on the grounds of her Canadian home.
In an exclusive interview Anderson told DailyMailTV: “I’m exactly where I need to be – in the arms of a man who truly loves me.”
The star has also shared her stunning wedding photos and video.
The Baywatch star has been married multiple times.
Anderson with her current husband
Her last wedding, the 5th, was in 2020. She married Hollywood mogul Jon Peters, 74, and it lasted for only 12 days.
She was previously married to Tommy Lee, with whom she shares sons Brandon, 23, and Dylan, 22.
The two were married from 1995 to 1998.
The actress later married and divorced Kid Rock in 2006.
Then she married producer Rick Solomon twice — in 2007 and 2013. The first ended in annulment.
It was widely reported that Anderson married Jon Peters, 74, on January 20, 2020 at Shutters Hotel in Santa Monica, California.
But according to Anderson they only had a mock ceremony, not an official wedding.
She told DailyMailTV: “We were never married. He is a movie maker and… I guess he just needed a little attention?”
A tweet about the 12-day union from her official account read: “Pamela Anderson was never legally married to Jon Peters (lifelong family friend) no hard feelings — no Marriage, no Divorce… just a bizarre theatrical lunch — Pamela has a good sense of humor about it.”
Gal Pissetzky and Vicki Podberesky who filed the application after months of negotiating with the US government, alleged that Hushpuppi stopped communicating with them and has now retained new lawyers to defend him in the case.
Premium Times reported that Mr Pissetzky and Ms Podberesky recently filed a motion at the United States District Court in California to withdraw from representing Mr Abass.
In the application dated January 21, Mr Pissetzky said;
“Since Mr Abbas’ arrest and arrival in the Central District of California, I have received voluminous discovery from the government and have been diligently reviewing it and investigating the allegations in this matter.
“My communications with Mr Abbas are by telephone given my inability to fly from Chicago to Los Angeles due to the pandemic. Ms. Podberesky, as local counsel, has made several visits to see Mr Abbas at the Santa Ana Jail and has also communicated with him by telephone.
“I, through Ms. Podberesky, have provided Mr Abbas with a copy of the discovery, reviewed it with him, and had numerous conferences with Mr Abbas telephonically, and Ms Podberesky has also met with him in-person to discuss the case. We discussed with Mr Abbas the potential theories that might be available to him at trial, pre-trial motions, the sentencing guidelines and the potential of a plea agreement.
“After months of discussions with Mr. Abbas and negotiations with the government, Mr Abbas now refuses to effectively communicate with me.
“I have made numerous attempts through family and jail staff to have Mr Abbas call me to discuss critical issues. Mr Abbas, however, has not communicated with me. Both family and jail staff have told me that they have conveyed my messages to Mr Abbas to call me.”
The lawyer said the lack of communication has created a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship to the point where he believed that Mr Abbas deliberately chose to stop talking to them.
Mr Pissetzky also disclosed that he received a telephone call from Mr Abbas on January 21, informing him of the decision to retain a new counsel.
He added;
“He informed me that he is retaining new counsel. I informed him that I and Ms. Podberesky were moving to withdraw given his refusal to communicate and cooperate with us.”
While the lawyers’ application for withdrawal will be heard by the court on February 22, it is speculated that Hushpuppi’s new attorney is a criminal defence lawyer with licence to practice in California.
Ramon Abbas a.k.a Hushpuppi has suffered a “setback” in his trial for fraud and money laundering in the United States, as his lawyers have applied to withdraw from the case.
Gal Pissetzky and Vicki Podberesky who filed the application after months of negotiating with the US government, alleged that Hushpuppi stopped communicating with them and has now retained new lawyers to defend him in the case.
Premium Times reported that Mr Pissetzky and Ms Podberesky recently filed a motion at the United States District Court in California to withdraw from representing Mr Abass.
In the application dated January 21, Mr Pissetzky said;
“Since Mr Abbas’ arrest and arrival in the Central District of California, I have received voluminous discovery from the government and have been diligently reviewing it and investigating the allegations in this matter.
“My communications with Mr Abbas are by telephone given my inability to fly from Chicago to Los Angeles due to the pandemic. Ms. Podberesky, as local counsel, has made several visits to see Mr Abbas at the Santa Ana Jail and has also communicated with him by telephone.
“I, through Ms. Podberesky, have provided Mr Abbas with a copy of the discovery, reviewed it with him, and had numerous conferences with Mr Abbas telephonically, and Ms Podberesky has also met with him in-person to discuss the case. We discussed with Mr Abbas the potential theories that might be available to him at trial, pre-trial motions, the sentencing guidelines and the potential of a plea agreement.
“After months of discussions with Mr. Abbas and negotiations with the government, Mr Abbas now refuses to effectively communicate with me.
“I have made numerous attempts through family and jail staff to have Mr Abbas call me to discuss critical issues. Mr Abbas, however, has not communicated with me. Both family and jail staff have told me that they have conveyed my messages to Mr Abbas to call me.”
The lawyer said the lack of communication has created a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship to the point where he believed that Mr Abbas deliberately chose to stop talking to them.
Mr Pissetzky also disclosed that he received a telephone call from Mr Abbas on January 21, informing him of the decision to retain a new counsel.
He added;
“He informed me that he is retaining new counsel. I informed him that I and Ms. Podberesky were moving to withdraw given his refusal to communicate and cooperate with us.”
While the lawyers’ application for withdrawal will be heard by the court on February 22, it is speculated that Hushpuppi’s new attorney is a criminal defence lawyer with licence to practice in California.
Federal civil servants on grade level 12 and below have been directed to work from home following the increased cases of Coronavirus recorded in the country.
In a circular dated January 26 and addressed to the office of the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, clerk of the National Assembly and Permanent Secretaries, the Head of Civil Service Folasade Yemi-Esan said the decision was taken to curb the spread of COVID-19.
It read;
“Further to the Circular, No. HCSF/3065/Vol.1/47 dated 22nd December 2020, on the above subject; and following the advice of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, all officers on GL 12 and below are to continue working from home till end of February, 2021.
“It is important to emphasise the need to ensure strict compliance with the existing guidelines on the prevention of the spread of COVID-19.
“Permanent Secretaries and Chief Executive Officers are enjoined to bring the contents of this circular to the attention of all concerned and ensure compliance.”
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has defended the clash between its security outfit, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the miitary on Monday January 25 in Orlu, Imo state.
IPOB’s spokesman Emma Powerful in a statement released on Tuesday January 26, accused Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo state of working with the Army to attack and flush out ESN officers from the bushes where they are operating from.
While the Nigerian Army said only one person died in the crossfire that ensued, IPOB insisted that five people were killed and several others were injured in the skirmish between ESN and soldiers drawn from the 34 Artillery Brigade in Obinze.
“ESN personnel are in the bush and forest chasing…terrorists and herdsmen who are over there terrorising our members and sisters in their respective farms, not Nigeria security agencies but they are looking for ESN’s trouble.
“Since the formation and inauguration of ESN by our great leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, on December 12, 2020, they have been inside the bushes and forests; their job is to protect farmers from invaders who made pronouncements that all lands in Nigeria belong to them.
“Every time, Nigerian Army and the police would come and look for their trouble in the bush.”
China sent two large formations of warplanes close to the island of Taiwan, a self governing island, that Beijing claims belongs to mainland China.
The muscle flexing by China’s military over the weekend, presents a significant foreign policy challenge to new United States President Joe Biden just days into his new administration.
According to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, 13 Chinese planes entered the southwestern portion of the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday followed by 15 on Sunday, prompting Taipei to scramble fighter jets to monitor the Chinese planes.
The ADIZ is defined as “a designated area of airspace over land or water within which a country requires the immediate and positive identification, location, and air traffic control of aircraft in the interest of the country’s national security.”
According to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, Chinese military planes made more than 380 flights into the island’s air defense identification zone last year.
The timing of the Chinese flights and their use of fighter jets and bombers appeared intended to send a message to Biden after the former Administration constantly opposed China’s oppressive moves towards Taiwan.
In a statement Saturday, the Biden administration urged Beijing to stop trying to intimidate Taiwan.
“We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected representatives,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price said, adding that US-Taiwan ties are deepening and Washington remains committed to the island’s self-rule.
Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, despite the fact that Taiwan has been governed separately for more than seven decades.
China’s President, Xi Jinping has vowed that Beijing will never allow the island to become independent and has refused to rule out the use of force if necessary.
During Trump’s administration, the US approved the sale of advanced military hardware to Taiwan, including F-16 fighter jets, while sending high-level envoys to the island, both moves that angered Beijing.
Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US, Hsiao Bi-khim, attended Biden’s inauguration last week, a show of support to the new US president – the first such official invitation to a representative of the Taipei government since 1979, when Washington established formal diplomatic ties with Beijing.
Besides supportig Taiwan, State Department spokesman Price said on Saturday that Washington would also stand with other Indo-Pacific friends and allies, as China ramps up its military activities in the region.
The US Navy aircraft carrier strike group entered the South China Sea at the weekend, the first deployment during the Biden administration of one of the 100,000-ton warships with its contingent of more than 60 aircraft.
. A US Navy statement said the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and its guided-missile cruiser and destroyer escorts were on a scheduled deployment to uphold freedom in the South China Sea, almost all of which China claims as its sovereign territory.
“With two-thirds of the world’s trade traveling through this very important region, it is vital that we maintain our presence and continue to promote the rules-based order,” Rear Adm. Doug Verissimo, commander of Carrier Strike Group Nine, said in a statement.
A woman in Brazil has been arrested for killing her own young daughter.
Josimare Gomes da Silva, 30, killed her daughter by gouging out her eyes before cutting out and eating her tongue.
She was arrested at her home for the murder of the five-year-old in the town of Sao Cristovao in the Maravilha municipality in the northeastern state of Alagoas.
The horrifying crime took place on January 24 when the child Brenda Carollyne Pereira da Silva’s grandfather saw blood running from the outside drain.
He broke down the locked bathroom door where he found da Silva praying next to his granddaughter’s lifeless body.
Her eyes had been gouged out and her tongue had been cut off, and investigators believe the injuries – which were inflicted with a pair of scissors while she was still alive – caused her death.
The grandfather told police his granddaughter’s neck was also purple as if it had been crushed.
He called the police who came to the house and sedated da Silva before arresting her.
The mum was taken to the police station in the nearby municipality of Delmiro Gouveia.
The suspect is known to suffer from mental health issues including depression, and it is believed she carried out the attack during a psychotic episode.
She is currently being held at a police station and will be transferred to a women’s prison in the state capital Maceio as the case is investigated.
The district attorney for Maravilha, Kleytione Pereira, has requested the woman be hospitalised for her crimes, rather than jailed.
“Due to the circumstances in which they appeared in the fact, with strong indications that the victim’s mother has psychological and psychiatric problems, and that perhaps at the time of the crime she was even in an outbreak,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
The Joe Biden administration has revived plans to put Harriet Tubman on $20 bill note after the process was delayed under Trump’s administration.
Harriet Tubman was a 19th-century abolitionist and political activist who escaped slavery, then took part in the rescues of hundreds of enslaved people, using the network of activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.
In 2016, Barrack Obama decided Tubman should replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. But Donald Trump, who placed a portrait of Jackson prominently in the Oval Office, blocked the Obama plan.
Joe Biden has now revived it with White House press secretary Jen Psaki telling reporters on Monday the treasury was “exploring ways to speed up” the process and adding: “It’s important that our money reflect the history and diversity of our country.”
“The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki after a question from a reporter.
The president has also replaced the Jackson portrait in the Oval Office with one of Benjamin Franklin, who appears on the $100 bill.
Psaki also said specifics on a new timeline for introducing a redesigned $20 note with Tubman would be announced when finalized by the Treasury Department.
Juno star, Elliot Page formerly known as Ellen Page has reportedly filed for divorce from wife Emma Portner, less than two months after coming out publicly as transgender.
The Umbrella Academy star filed legal documents seeking the dissolution of their three-years marriage in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to TMZ.
The pair reportedly met through social media after Emma caught Elliot’s eye when the Canadian actor stumbled upon one of her dancing videos. They went on to tie the knot in January 2018 in a secret ceremony with the actor later announcing on Instagram: ‘Can’t believe I get to call this extraordinary woman my wife.’
News of their divorce comes two months after Page came out as transgender in a powerful social media post, in which he announced his pronouns are he/they.
‘I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self. I’ve been endlessly inspired by so many in the trans community. Thank you for your courage, your generosity and ceaselessly working to make this world a more inclusive and compassionate place,’ he wrote.
‘I will offer whatever support I can and continue to strive for a more loving and equal society.’
Emma Portner is a dancer and choreopgrapher who is currently listed as a contemporary jazz teacher at New York’s Broadway Dance Center. She has also featured in a number of Justin Bieber music videos and live shows.
A man’s cause of death has been listed as ‘extreme orgasm’ after he died while visiting a sex worker in Phalombe, Malawi.
The deceased, named as one Charles Majawa reportedly lost consciousness after having sex with the woman in the town’s trading district and died shortly afterwards.
The woman involved in the incident reported the death to police after discussing the matter with some of her colleagues.
The police and a medical examiner from Migowi Health Centre viewed the body and confirmed on August 18 2020 that Mr. Majawa, 35, had in fact died while in the act.
A postmortem has now revealed the cause of death was due to “excessive orgasm which caused blood vessels in the brain to rupture.”
Police confirmed that the woman would not be held liable for Majawa’s death and no charges would be raised.
According to reports, the man “died of too much sexual excitement and sweetness.”
Senior Chief Kaduya reports that Mr Majawa’s body was taken back to his home village of Matepwe.
US president Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Monday, January 25 that will lift the Pentagon’s ban on transgender people serving in the military put in place by ex-president Donald Trump, according to multiple US reports.
The controversial ban was announced by former President Donald Trump in 2017 and reversed the Obama administration’s policy to allow anyone including transgender and gay people from serving in military.
New US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be with Biden on Monday when the executive order will be signed.
“The ban will be officially lifted tomorrow,” said a White House official on Sunday to ABC news.
Biden had said during the presidential campaign that he favored repealing the ban.
In May 2020, Biden had said he would direct the Pentagon to let “transgender service members serve openly and free from discrimination in the military.”
“They can shoot as straight as anybody else can shoot,” he added.
At his confirmation hearing last week Austin had said he would support an effort to repeal the ban.
“I support the president’s plan to overturn the ban,” Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“If you’re fit and you’re qualified to serve and you can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve, and you can expect that I will support that throughout.”
Some advocacy groups say as high as 15,000 individuals are transgender in the US military.
In 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced a policy that would allow transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. military openly.
But in July 2017, Trump issued a series of tweets that immediately banned such service.
The new policy required service members and those wishing to join the military to adhere to the standards associated with their biological sex.
Service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria, defined as “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender … associated with clinically significant distress and impairment of functioning,” were no longer allowed to receive medical surgeries for gender transition unless they were currently in the process of receiving medical treatment.
Transgender individuals who had received hormones or medical surgery related to their transition were barred from joining the military, even if they could prove stability in their preferred gender.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has ordered a probe of the General Overseer of Omega Fire Ministries International, Apostle Johnson Suleman, who has been accused by a former Pastor of his church, Mike Davids, of sleeping with his wife, Faith Edeko, who heads the Abuja branch of the church.
This sex scandal comes four years after the clergyman was enmeshed in the Stephanie Otobo sex scandal.
In a petition written by his counsel V.C Ezenagu & Associates, the aggrieved Pastor Davids accused Apostle Suleman of sleeping with his wife, threatening his life, and preventing him from seeing his three children.
In the petition, Davids said he met Apostle Suleman in 2003 while he was in school and that the clergyman eventually ordained him a pastor in Omega Fire Ministries on June 9, 2006 after they became very close. He said he served the church for over 15 years before he left in 2019. He attached his pastoral certificate with license number 125 to the petition.
In three videos posted online on Sunday, January 24, Pastor Davids said he and his wife, Faith, began dating while in secondary school and that they courted for about 11 years before they got married.
He said in 2008, he introduced Faith who was still his fiancée at the time to Apostle Suleman whom he regarded as his spiritual father. Davids alleged that Faith told him while they were still dating that Apostle Suleman was making advances at her and once invited her to Reliance Hotel, Benin. He said at the time, he never regarded it as anything and dismissed Faith’s claim.
The clergyman said he was posted to Osun State in 2010 to pastor a branch of the church shortly after the birth of their daughter, Michelle, in November 2009. Davids claimed that Apostle Suleman was at the time setting up a gospel television station and asked him to release his wife to him as he would be needing her experience as an employee of NTA.
Davids claimed that it was during his wife’s visit to Auchi to help in setting up the TV station that Apostle Suleman had canal knowledge of his wife in the presence of their daughter.
“My wife was a staffer with NTA Iruekpen, so Apostle Suleman reached out to her that they will need her to build Celebration TV and Rhema for Living. She would have to shuttle between Osun State and Auchi.
She came back from Auchi to Osun State and said she wanted to talk to me that her conscience was pricking her. I asked what was it and she said that while in Auchi, Apostle Suleman lodged her at Uyi Grand Hotel and he came there and slept with her.
And the moment she said that, the first thing that came to my mind was my daughter. I asked where was Michelle when this happened and she said Michelle was on the bed, pushed aside and I asked, ‘You mean you slept with a man with my daughter on the bed?’. I had to let it go because there was nobody I could tell and I couldn’t fight with Apostle Suleman… I forgave her but the amorous relationship continued. One thing I know is that my wife was hypnotised. This is not the woman I got married to, who I knew for 11 years.”Davids claimed
Davids alleged that his relationship with Apostle Suleman soon turned sour and he was suspended but after the suspension was lifted, he refused to return and then started receiving threats from Apostle Suleman. He alleged that when he left the church in July 2019, things turned a different dimension when his wife began to fight with him and moved out of their matrimonial home with their three children and relocated to Abuja.
“Apostle Suleman has given her a branch of the church in Utako, Abuja to head without permission. I am calling on Pastor David Oyedepo, Pastor Paul Enenche, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Pastor Margaret Idahosa, CAN, PFN.
Apostle Suleman has damaged my life. I have not seen my wife and children for two years and Apostle Suleman says if I ever go near them, he will have me taken out. I have a video where he said he will make me disappear. I don’t want to lose my life.”
He said he and Faith are still married as their marriage is yet to dissolved by any competent court of jurisdiction.
Reacting to the petition, the IGP in a letter addressed to the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Force Intelligence Bureau, Garki, and dated January 5, 2021, ordered a full investigation into the allegation.
The police letter which is titled, ‘Re: Criminal Petition Against Apostle Johnson Suleman for Enticement of a Married Woman; Adultery; Unlawful Criminal Restraint to Access Children and Threat to Life’, reads in part
“I attach here with a copy of a letter dated December 30, 2020 with its attachments received from V.C Ezenagu & Associates on the above-underlined subject. The Inspector-General of Police directs that you treat. Accept the assurances of my esteemed regards please.”
Apostle Suleman is yet to comment on the allegation.
Watch the video of the clergyman accusing Apostle Suleman below
A California resident who tested positive for COVID-19 in late December died several hours after receiving a shot of the vaccine.
The individual, who has not been named, reportedly died in Placer County, in the greater Sacramento area, on Thursday.
The death was announced by the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in a Facebook post, with the department adding that the incident remains under investigation.
‘The individual was administered a COVID-19 vaccine several hours before their death on January 21, 2021,’ the agency wrote. ‘The vaccine was not administered by Placer County Public Health.’
It’s unclear if the person was given the Moderna of Pfizer vaccine.
‘There are multiple local, state, and federal agencies actively investigating this case; any reports surrounding the cause of death are premature, pending the outcome of the investigation. Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased,’ the sheriff’s office continued.
Officials with the Placer County Coroner’s Office have confirmed they would be conducting an autopsy on Monday to determine the person’s specific cause of death.
In a statement, the California Department of Health said: ‘Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased. We take these instances seriously which is why we are working with our government partners to investigate the cause.
‘We are working collaboratively and will continue to use data and science to determine how to proceed.’
This comes a week after California State Epidemiologist Dr. Erica S. Pan recommended that providers halt the administration of one batch of the Moderna vaccine ‘out of an extreme abundance of caution’ after it caused an allergic reaction in less than ten people.
‘While no vaccine or medical procedure is without risk, the risk of a serious adverse reaction is very small,’ the California Department of Health wrote.
‘While less data exists on adverse reactions related to the Moderna vaccine, a similar vaccine shows that the expected rate of anaphylaxis is approximately 1 in 100,000.’
American actress, Kate Hudson has opened up about raising her three children with three different co-parents.
In a new interview with USA Today that aired on January 24, the actress spoke about her experience as a mother of three children with different fathers.
Hudson shares a 17-year-old Ryder son with ex-husband Chris Robinson, a 9-year-old son Bingham with ex-fiancé Matt Bellamy, and a 2-year-old daughter Rani Rose with her boyfriend Danny Fujikawa.
Hudson was married to Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson (left) from 2000 until 2007, and engaged to Muse’s Matt Bellamy (right) from 2011 to 2014.
Speaking during a virtual chat on Sunday Today with Willie Geist, The Almost Famous star, 41, said: ‘I’ve got multiple dads, I’ve got kids all over the place!
‘The only expectations I really have that are really high in my life is with my kids, and with family stuff,’ she continued.
‘Other than that, it’s like, I just let it go… I work my a** off, and then I walk away, and I hope for the best.’
Hudson and her current boyfriend, Danny Fujikawa
In the interview, the Skeleton Key star also reflected on what it was like growing up estranged from her own father, actor, and musician Bill Hudson, which she referred to as a ’41-year-old issue.’
‘I think that estrangement is unfortunately quite common, and I think it’s important for people to talk about that,’ Kate shared.
‘Sometimes [people] need a little bit of talk and humor to move us into places where we can heal some of the wounds that have effected us from our families.’
Kate is daughter to Oscar-winning actress Goldie Hawn, and along with her brother Oliver, she was raised with Goldie’s longtime partner Kurt Russell.
‘I have a beautiful mother,’ the Fool’s Gold actress shared. ‘I have a stepfather who stepped in and played a huge, huge part in sharing what it is to have a dependable father figure in our life, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that we didn’t know our dad.’
Kate also opened up about what it’s like during this strange period of lockdown at home with her kids.
‘I wanna be, like, “Yeah, it’s so great and we’re figuring out…” but the reality is that there are days that are great, and there’s days that I have to remind myself to be grateful,’ Hudson said.
‘I never thought in a million years that I’d spend a year in one place,’ she also shared, referring to herself as a ‘gypsy’ who loved to travel as a working actor.
‘When you have so many kids, sometimes you have those moments where you’re hiding in your bathroom going, “Please, please, get me out of here!”
‘I just remind myself there’s a lot of people out there who have lost their loved ones, and we just gotta stay in for a bit,’ she added.
Frank Lampard is reportedly set to be sacked today by Chelsea following the club’s slump in form that sees them sit ninth in the Premier League table.
According to Daily Telegraph, the board told players not to report to the training ground until Monday afternoon, January 25, as Lampard will become the 10th manager sacked during the Roman Abramovich era.
Confirmation of Lampard’s sacking is expected to be announced on Monday as the club take decisive action following a run of five losses in eight league games.
Chelsea Sunday’s win over Luton Town took them to the fifth round of the FA Cup but it seems it was not enough to save the former midfielder from his job after only 18 months into his time as Chelsea manager.
Former Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund manager, Thomas Tuchel is reportedly in a prime position to replace Lampard as talks are currently ongoing.
Pope Francis on Sunday, January 24, prayed for a homeless Nigerian man who died near St. Peter’s Square amid freezing temperatures.
Speaking after the Angelus, the pope led prayers for the 46-year-old Nigerian man identified as Edwin, who was reportedly found dead by volunteers from the Community of Sant’Egidio on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.
“Last Jan. 20, a few meters from St. Peter’s Square, a 46-year-old Nigerian homeless man named Edwin was found dead because of the cold,” the pope said.
“His story was added to that of many other homeless people who recently died in Rome in the same dramatic circumstances. Let us pray for Edwin.”
The Pope then recalled a story from the papacy of St. Gregory the Great. When he witnessed the death of a beggar in the cold, the 6th century Pope ordered that all Masses be suspended for a whole day, “because it was Good Friday”
“May we be reminded of the words of St. Gregory the Great, who, when faced with the death of a mendicant from cold, said that Masses would not be celebrated that day because it was like Good Friday.”
“Let us think about Edwin. Let us think of what this man, 46 years old, felt in the cold, ignored by all, abandoned, even by us. Let us pray for him.”
According to the news website RomaToday, Edwin was the fourth homeless person to die this year in Rome, where there are an estimated 8,000 homeless people. Many sleep along the edge of Bernini’s colonnade, the semi-circular columns enclosing St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis gave the Angelus address via livestream in the library of the Apostolic Palace, where the prayer has taken place since a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy.
Photo credit: AFP/agendakobby
Hudson was married to Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson (left) from 2000 until 2007, and engaged to Muse’s Matt Bellamy (right) from 2011 to 2014.
