Lagos police arrest 2 bridge railings vandals (Guardian)
Operatives of Lagos State Rapid Response Squad (RRS), yesterday, at about 3:00 a.m. arrested two suspected vandals with a pile of already cut railings and a hacksaw on the overhead bridge at the Trade Fair Complex, Ojo, Lagos.
The suspects are 22-year-old Abdullateef Abdulrahim and 16-year-old Aliyu Lawan. The Commander of RRS, Olayinka Egbeyemi, had in response to credible intelligence on crime in the area directed an operation that led to the arrest of the suspects.
According to the State Police spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, the Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Alabi, has directed that the case be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) Yaba, for further investigation to detect and crush the criminal network behind the incessant destruction of infrastructure and their eventual prosecution.
Also, CP Alabi has directed the commencement of the enforcement of the total ban on the use of Police SPY number plates by the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, within Lagos State. Read more
Lagos govt trains self-employed youths (Punch)
The Lagos State Government has trained skill instructors as part of efforts to engage poor and vulnerable residents that have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs Oluyemi Kalesanwo, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday, adding that the social intervention platform themed, ‘Lagos cares livelihood support delivery,’ will provide short skill training for youths in the state.
She said, “The programme is geared towards stimulating the economy, preventing the collapse of businesses, and providing short skill training to economically active and self-employed youths in the state. It was initiated with the assistance of the Federal Government and the World Bank to ensure people get back to their previous status before the onset of COVID-19, as well as have enough to feed themselves and cater for their families.
“The present administration will take disciplinary action against any instructor that is not living up to expectations because strict monitoring would be put in place by the ministry.” Read more
N97.3m Debt: Vehicles trapped as Customs shut port operator from portal (Leadership)
Thousandsof imported used and new vehicles are currently trapped at the Five Star Logistics Ltd, operator of terminal D at the Tin Can Island Port Complex, Lagos after the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), removed the terminal operator from its portal over N97.3million indebtedness.
LEADERSHIP reports that the Public Relations officer of the Tin-Can Island Command of the Customs Service, Uche Ejisieme, disclosed that in the course of investigation and auditing, the system revealed an unpaid accumulated amount, hence the reason for the blockage of the terminal.
”I can authoritatively confirm to you that the service has blocked the exit access for Five-Star Logistics following an investigation that led to the discovery of unpaid assessment to the tune of N97.3m,” the Command’s spokesman declared.
However, speaking to LEADERSHIP on the debt and consequences of the blockage, the acting president, Association of Nigerian Licenced Customs Agents (ANLCA), Kayode Farinto, however, warned the terminal operator to solve the issue before Tuesday or be sued for breach of agreement. Read more
Omo Eko Pataki, congratulates Osun people, charges Lagos on inclusive governance (Independent)
Omo Eko Pataki, has Congratulated Osun State People over their participation in the Osun State governorship election where Senator Ademola Adeleke emerged winner and charged Lagos State on inclusive governance
According to a press statement on Sunday signed by Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, (retd) Trustee of Ọmọ Eko Pataki, former GOC Third Armored Division, and former Minister of Communications, stated that the Ọṣun people have spoken, and congratulated them for their courage and for their bold insistence on asserting their inalienable democratic right, pointing out that the will of the people have prevailed.
“But along the lines of our non partisan disposition, we are indifferent to which party won the election. We are only interested in the Will of the people.
“We, the Eko Pataki now emphasize for the umpteenth time the absolute importance of equitable representation of our people in the governance of Lagos state regardless of whichever party comes to power in 2023. The voice of our people must not only be heard, it must be heard with vigor and demonstrable importance,” the statement noted. Read more
Lai Mohammed, Sanwo-Olu to speak at 49th AAAN congress (Nation)
The Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAN), an umbrella body of the advertising companies operating in Nigeria, is set to hold its 49th Annual General Meeting and Congress (AGM).
The 49th AGM with the theme: ‘The new world order: technology as a game changer’, will hold in Lagos on Friday.
In a statement yesterday, AAAN said Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed are among the dignitaries expected to attend the congress.
It added that Sanwo-Olu will declare the AGM open, while Mohammed, whose ministry oversees advertising, will grace the event as the keynote speaker as well as the special guest of honour. Read more
Nigerians commend Osinbajo for undergoing medical treatment in Lagos (Vanguard)
Nigerians have commended Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for his transparency, accountability and commitment to a New Nigeria after undergoing a surgical procedure in a Lagos hospital.
Osinbajo’s spokesperson, Laolu Akande, had disclosed that the Vice President was in hospital for “a surgical procedure on account of a recurrent pain in the leg possibly sustained from an injury while playing squash”.
Akande later revealed in a statement that Osinbajo was admitted to Duchess International Hospital GRA.
“He had a surgical operation performed by a team of specialist doctors, including Dr. Wallace Ogufere (Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon); Dr. Om Lahoti (Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon); Dr. Babajide Lawson (Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon); Dr. Ken Adegoke (Consultant in Anaesthesia & Critical Care); Dr. Oladimeji Agbabiaka (Consultant Anaesthetist); and Dr Adedoyin Dosunmu-Ogunbi (Consultant Physician & Medical Director). Read more
Court orders FG to return five houses, funds to Nigerien businessman (Nation)
A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Federal Government to return five house and foreign currencies in bank accounts belonging to a Nigerien businessman, Hima Aboubakar, which were wrongly seized.
Justice Emeka Nwite gave the order in a ruling in which he reversed an earlier order issued on June 13, 2020 in favour of the Federal Government for final forfeiture of the properties located in Maitama, Abuja and funds being held in various accounts.
The affected properties are: Plot 1506, House 6, Ethiopia Close, off Owena Close, Maitama; Plot 3515, Cadastral Zone A06, Maitama; Plot 3516, Cadastral Zone A06, Maitama; Plot 3518, Cadastral Zone A06, Maitama and Plot 3519, Cadastral Zone A06, Maitama.
The funds are: N72.5million; $84,417 and £15,288 belonging to Aboubakar in various bank accounts. Read more
Yakubu Maikyau elected new NBA President (Channels)
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Yakubu Maikyau, has emerged as the 31st President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
Maikyau was named the new NBA president following an election of the legal body which was held virtually.
The Chairman of the Electoral Committee who is also an SAN, Professor Ayodele Akintunde, announced made the declaration on Sunday in Abuja while announcing the result of the poll.
Maikyau who polled a total of 22, 342 votes to win the election, was followed closely by his fellow SAN, Joe-Kyari Gadzama who scored 10, 842 votes. Read more
Beyonce´ criticised Austin Powers poster for making her appear ‘too skinny’ (FilmNews)
Beyonce´ called out the designer of the movie poster for Austin Powers in Goldmember because they made her look “too skinny”.
The music superstar made her film debut as Foxxy Cleopatra in the 2002 spy comedy, which also featured Mike Myers as the titular character and Robert Wagner, Seth Green, and Michael York.
Reflecting on the production in an interview for Vulture, make-up artist Kate Biscoe recalled the time Beyonce´ expressed her disapproval of a draft of the film’s promotional material.
“When we were shooting, someone brought her a poster that would be promoting the movie. He showed it to her, like, ‘Do you like it?’ And she was kind of like, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘What’s the matter?” And she says, ‘You made me too skinny. It’s not me.’ Then she did this hourglass shape. And he said, ‘Okay, we’ll fix that,’” she remembered of the conversation. “She walked away to go do the scene, and I looked at him and smiled, like, ‘Is that the first time that you’ve ever had an actress ask to make her body bigger?’ He was like, ‘Yes. It’s going to cost me thousands of dollars, but I am going to do it.’” Read more
Andrew Bird cancels his Shepherds Bush Empire show because of the heatwave (NME)
Andrew Bird has cancelled his upcoming performance at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire due to the ongoing heatwave.
Bird was due to play the revered venue tomorrow (July 19) in support of his 13th studio album, last month’s ‘Inside Problems’. However, temperatures in London are predicted to hit 40 degrees Celsius (at the time of writing) by Tuesday afternoon, resulting in Bird cancelling his show.
Taking to Twitter today (July 18), Bird offered up apologies to fans saying to go ahead with the event poses a risk. “Between the heat wave keeping folks from getting to the show and the risk it poses during unprecedented times, this is our best option to keep everyone safe. My apologies,” Bird wrote.
He continued the thread to say: “Hope we can make it up and maybe hit some other spots soon, we’ll see.” Read more
Colin Firth and Olivia Colman’s new movie lands award season release date (DigitalSpy)
Colin Firth and Olivia Colman’s new film has got a release date, and it looks like the distributor has big plans for it as its coming out in awards season.
Coming from Skyfall and 1917 director Sam Mendes and his cinematographer Roger Deakins, Empire of Light is set in an English seaside town in the 1980s. It is described as “a powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinema”, but that’s all we know about the plot so far.
Alongside Bridget Jones’ Diary and Kingsman star Firth, plus The Favourite and The Mitchells vs the Machines star Colman, Top Boy and Blue Story star Michael Ward also features. None of their roles are known at this point, however.
The film will be coming out in cinemas on December 9, and we are sure Searchlight will be heavily promoting it before releasing and if/when they push for award recognition, especially with that cast and director/cinematographer combination. Read more
Nick Cannon teases engagement announcement with his 5.9m Instagram followers (HipHopDX)
Nick Cannon is probably the last person on the planet who should get married. The professional procreator seems to have trouble sticking with just one woman — and has the fleet of children and their mothers to prove it. But on Friday (July 15), the Wild ‘N Out co-creator had social media buzzing after he appeared to announce his engagement.
Taking to Instagram, the multi-faceted entertainer shared a photo of himself with a woman whose arms are wrapped around him. In another photo, he shows off what looks like a giant engagement ring inside a box. He wrote in the caption, “I said I would never do it again but…Finally doing what the world wants me to do.” He added a diamond ring emoji to cap off the post.
Fans and peers alike flooded the comment section with congratulatory remarks, but some were quick to assert he must be teasing an upcoming music video. The timing of the post is suspect considering he just dropped his Raw & B: The Explicit Tape project in May and is about due for a visual.
Plus, Cannon was just talking about how he would get back with his ex-wife Mariah Carey in a recent interview, which would suggest he’s nowhere near ready to marry someone. Read more
Phoebe Bridgers ‘blacked out’ when Taylor Swift text her about collaboration (MusicNews)
Phoebe Bridgers blacked out when she received a text from Taylor Swift asking her to collaborate on a song.
The Shake It Off singer released Red (Taylor’s Version) in November, with the album featuring all the songs on her original 2012 record Red as well as several unreleased tracks, including Nothing New.
Taylor reached out to Phoebe about appearing on the track via her co-writer and producer Aaron Dessner and the I Know the End singer freaked out.
“I remember blacking out reading the text because we’d never met or interacted in any way, so to be asked as our first interaction was crazy,” Phoebe recalled to The Guardian. Read more
Fires scorch France and Spain as Europe wilts under extreme heat wave (RFI)
Authorities in France and across southwest Europe are battling to control huge wildfires and thousands of people have been evacuated in soaring temperatures.
Blazes raging in France, Spain, Portugal and Greece have destroyed thousands of hectares of land, forced people from their homes and killed several emergency personnel since last week.
It is the second heatwave engulfing parts of southwest Europe in weeks.
Scientists blame climate change and predict more frequent and intense episodes of extreme weather such as heatwaves and drought. Read more
Sylvester Stallone calls for “what’s left of my rights back” from ‘Rocky’ Producer Irwin Winkler
(Deadline)
Sylvester Stallone was the writer and star of the hit 1976 film Rocky and its 5 sequels, but he doesn’t own any of the rights to his creation. The action star is calling for producer Irwin Winkler to give him “what’s left of [his] rights back,” a “painful subject” Stallone says “eats at my soul.”
“After IRWIN controlling ROCKY for over 47 years, and now CREED, I really would like have at least a little WHAT’s LEFT of my RIGHTS back, before passing it on to ONLY YOUR CHILDREN – I believe That would be a FAIR gesture from this 93 year old gentleman,” Stallone captioned a “very flattering” drawing via Instagram on Sunday of Winkler with a blade protruding from his mouth and a body that resembles a snake.
He continued, “This is a painful subject That eats at my soul , because I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my children, but it’s always great hearing from the loyal fans… Keep Punching.”
The rights to the Rocky franchise have long been a point of contention for Stallone, who was paid approximately $75k (for the screenplay and his acting fees) plus 10 net points which earned him at least $2.5 million for the first film, according to his calculation shared with Variety. Read more
Nigeria’s medals hope shift to Brume, Amusan, women’s 4x100m relay team (Guardian)
After the failure by Nigeria’s male sprinters to complement the brilliant performance of the mixed relay team at the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Oregon, the country’s hope for medals now shifts to the women, particularly long jumper, Ese Brume and hurdler, Tobi Amusan.
Team Nigeria officials are also hoping for the women’s 4x100m relay team to grab a medal. On Day One of the championship on Friday, Nigeria’s mixed relay team, made up of Patience Okon-George, Imaobong Nse Uko, Dubem Amene and Samson Nathaniel, made history by placing sixth in its second outing at a major competition, despite being rated 15th out of 16 participating countries in Oregon 2022.
Then, attention shifted to men’s 100m, where the efforts of Favour Ashe and Remond Ekevwo could not get to the medals zone. Nigeria’s Ashe placed fifth in the semifinal on Saturday morning. Shot Putter, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, who placed eighth in 2019 in Doha, was in the final. It was decided last night in the United States, which is early this morning in Nigeria.
The 4x100m relay for both men and women will begin on July 22, while the duo of Brume and Amusan will start their individual events on July 23. Read more
Joe Aribo: European title my target at Southampton (Nation)
Missing the Europa League by a whisker last season has become a driving force for Super Eagles midfielder Joe Aribo.
He looks forward to realising that dream again with Southampton one day, after putting pen to paper on a four-year deal at St Mary’s.
Aribo played in all 17 of Rangers’ Europa League games last season, from the qualification play-off to the final in Seville, in which he scored the opener against Eintracht Frankfurt, only for the Germans to triumph on penalties. Also lifting the Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup trophies in his time north of the border, the 25-year-old wants to be competing for honours once more on the south coast.
“I’d say definitely pushing for Europe, that’s a big one,” he said. Read more
Leeds star Illan Meslier thwarts Philippe Coutinho with incredible double save (DailyStar)
Leeds’ Illan Meslier pulled off a remarkable double-save to snub out Philippe Coutinho.
The Whites might have fallen to a 1-0 defeat in their pre-season encounter with Aston Villa in Brisbane but their shot-stopper took the plaudits after his tremendous double-save. Coutinho ran up to the ball on the spot, giving a slight feint before he stuck the ball to the keeper’s right.
It looked like Meslier went down to ground too soon, but the 22-year-old was somehow able to stick out his left arm and get a touch on the ball to deny the Brazilian star. The resulting parry fell kindly for Coutinho, but he was snubbed once more, hitting the ball down low and to the corner was not enough to evade the Frenchman in goal, who stuck out a leg to once again smash the ball out of danger.
Despite the brilliant saves, it was Villa who bagged the only goal of the game. Halfway through the first-half, Ings converted a penalty awarded after Leif Davis handballed in his attempted cross. Read more
Erik ten Hag tore up Man Utd transfer plans to secure Lisandro Martinez signing (Mirror)
Manchester United have confirmed that Lisandro Martinez will become their third signing of the summer transfer window after reaching an agreement with Ajax for his transfer.
The 24-year-old has agreed terms for a five-year contract at Old Trafford with an initial £46.8million fee going to Ajax with a further £8.5m set to come in add-ons, bringing the total up to £55.3m. Martinez follows the £14.1million signing of Tyrell Malacia from Feyenoord and the arrival of Christian Eriksen as a free agent following his exit from Brentford.
The arrival of Martinez sees new United boss Erik ten Hag secure one of his key objectives of the summer window and it is also a highly significant one, as it demonstrates how the club backed their new coach ahead of their own recruitment department on the deal.
United had identified Villarreal defender and Spain international Pau Torres as a key summer transfer target to bolster their defensive ranks. Indeed, such was the promise of the deal and confidence on all sides that a transfer could be struck, the player’s agents were planning to go to England to conclude the transfer. Read more
Jumbo-Visma’s Steven Kruijswijk out of Tour de France (Eurosport)
Steven Kruijswijk is out of the Tour de France after suffering a horror injury of Stage 15.
The Jumbo-Visma rider went down with 60km to go in an incident also involving Martijn Tusveld (Team DSM).
The accident looked severe enough for Wout van Aert to stop and check on his fallen team-mate, who appeared in great distress as he clutched his right arm in what looked like a bad shoulder injury.
An ambulance was soon on the scene and Kruijswijk was taken away on a stretcher. Read more
Ricciardo urges F1 fans not to cheer crashes (RN365)
Daniel Ricciardo has urged F1 fans not to cheer crashes in light of recent behaviour amongst certain members of the crowd over the Austrian Grand Prix weekend.
Some fans in the grandstands were heard cheering when Lewis Hamilton crashed out of Q3 in Friday’s qualifying, whilst Max Verstappen was on the receiving end of booing at Silverstone one week earlier.
The incidences have sparked discussion amongst many in the sport, with Hamilton critical of those who cheered his accident as well as the fans who booed Verstappen.
Ricciardo has given his take on the issue, and acknowledges that cheering a crash is very different territory to showing support in a rivalry. Read more
Ex-American star makes big Grand Slam title prediction for Novak Djokovic (TennisWorld)
Former American tennis player Leif Shiras says Novak Djokovic is still in an exceptional shape and he believes the Serb could win five or six more Grand Slam before he retires. Djokovic, who turned 35 in May, clinched his 21st Grand Slam title after beating Nick Kyrgios in this year’s Wimbledon final.
“I think Novak Djokovic in his current form, his physical health, he has got you know four or five more Majors in him where he could get to 26 or 27,” Shiras said in a conversation with Kamau Murray, per Sportskeeda.
“He is 35 years old and he continues to set this amazing standard of physicality. And you know he goes down a set to these young challengers two sets, in fact to Sinner and you feel like it just doesn’t bother him.
He just finds another gear in his head in his legs and in his heart.” Read more