Pastor pleads guilty to defilement of two sisters (Guardian)
A 48-year-old pastor, Nduka Anyanwu, on Wednesday, pleaded guilty to defiling and impregnating two teenage sisters, before a Yaba Chief Magistrates’ Court in Lagos.
Anyanwu is facing a two-count charge of defilement.
Following his guilty plea to both charges, the Chief Magistrate Mrs A. Adedayo, remanded the defendant in a custodial center and adjourned the case to Sept. 15, for facts and sentencing.
Earlier, the Police Prosecutor, ASP Roman Unuigbe, told the court that the defendant committed the offences sometime in June, at Oshodi area of Lagos. Read more
Violence as Taskforce ‘kills’ two motorists in Lagos (Vanguard)
Two commercial motorists were Wednesday morning allegedly killed by officials of the Lagos State Taskforce at Abule Egba following a disagreement.
The victims said to be a driver and conductor, were allegedly shot by the officials for yet to be ascertained reasons.
Another account indicated that the Taskforce officials crushed the driver with their patrol vehicle, a development that provoked the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the axis.
At the time of this report, the crisis was said to have escalated to Alakuko with sporadic gunshots heard and bottles flung across the road. Read more
Commuters stranded as danfo drivers protest on Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway (Punch)
Commuters were on Wednesday afternoon stranded along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway as commercial bus drivers stopped operations.
Our correspondents gathered that some operatives of the Lagos State Task Force had earlier stormed the Abule-Egba and Ijaiye areas in the Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government Area of the state.
The task force officers were said to have been on enforcement duty when some unknown persons confronted them with dangerous weapons. Read more
Truck, car destroyed in Lagos as fire guts Access Bank building (Vanguard)
A truck- laden with diesel and a stationary car, was reportedly destroyed, Wednesday, when fire gutted a branch of Access Bank in Lagos.
Although there was no loss of life, the truck with number plate AKD 637 XP, laden 33,000 litres of diesel and the car with number plate AKD 234 FA, were reportedly ravaged by the inferno.
The bank is located on Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The Director-General, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency LASEMA, Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu has since confirmed the incident. Read more
We are ready to resume, varsity lecturers tell FG (Punch)
Lecturers under the aegis of Congress of University Academics have asked the Federal Government to reopen tertiary institutions in the country.
CONUA is a breakaway faction of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
CONUA made this known in a press statement on Wednesday after its National Executive Council meeting held in Abuja.
The statement, which was signed by CONUA’s National Coordinator, Niyi Sunmonu, was titled ‘Stop intimidation of CONUA members’. Read more
FG approves N10bn to cushion COVID-19 setback in transport sector (Guardian)
The Federal Government has approved N10 billion to cushion the sufferings encountered by road transport workers and operators as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister of State for Transportation, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.
Saraki made this known when the President, Public Transport Owners of Nigeria Association (PTONA), Isaac Uhunwagho, led the association’s National Executive Committee and Trustees to visit her in Abuja. Read more
Fani-Kayode apologises for calling journalist ‘stupid’ (Punch)
A former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, has apologised for referring to a journalist, Eyo Charles, as “stupid”.
Fani-Kayode said this in a statement on Wednesday.
He said, “I met with my advisors till late last night and I wish to say the following. I hereby withdraw the word ‘stupid’ which I used in my encounter with a journalist in Calabar. I have many friends in the media who I offended by losing my cool and using such words. I hereby express my regrets for doing so.” Read more
Oyo suspected serial killer narrates how he escaped from police custody (Vanguard)
A suspected serial killer, Sunday Shodipe, who escaped the Oyo State police custody has been re-arrested.
Shodipe recounting how he escaped from police custody to Oriyomi Hamzat TV said, “The new DPO at Mokola Police Station told a policeman, Funso, that he should take us out to have our bath. The policeman took me out and he warned me against trying to escape. I didn’t even think of escaping when he said that.
“But when I saw that he was engrossed in his discussion with a man, I climbed the tank stand and scaled the fence. It was around 7pm when I escaped.” Read more
Chloroquine potent for COVID-19 prevention, says NAFDAC (Guardian)
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), yesterday, declared that chloroquine prevents the dreaded coronavirus.
Its Director General, Prof. Christianah Mojisola Adeyeye, during an online interactive session with journalists said: “We realise that chloroquine can be used in the early stage of the COVID-19 infection as prophylactic treatment. Science does not lie.”
The pharmacist further explained: “On March 20, 2020 during a press briefing, I said I was going through a literature and I found (out) that chloroquine and remdesivir killed COVID-19 in vitro – that is in the laboratory. In early March, there was a publication where 100 patients were treated with chloroquine in 10 hospitals across Chinese cities. I made a statement that chloroquine is only for clinical trial treatment. There has to be a level of confidence that depends on the number of subjects and results.” Read more
Jacob Blake: Two shot dead in third night of Wisconsin unrest (BBC)
Two people have been killed and one injured during a third night of unrest in the US city of Kenosha, sparked by the police shooting of a black man.
Police said three people had been shot, but gave no details about who was involved.
Local media reports earlier said the violence was believed to have stemmed from a conflict between protesters and armed men guarding a petrol station.
Unrest broke out after Jacob Blake was shot and injured by police on Sunday. Read more
Parachutist makes world’s first jump from solar-powered plane (NYPost)
A parachutist completed the world’s first jump from a solar-powered aircraft on Tuesday after the plane soared to a height of 1,520 meters (nearly 5,000 ft) over western Switzerland, Swiss organizers said.
The two-seater prototype plane made the test flight in good weather and to promote renewable energy. Parachutist Raphael Domjan reached a speed of 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour during his jump, landing near the project base in Payerne.
“Today there were many firsts but the most important is [this is] the first time ever that someone jumped from an electric aircraft. And this is something that is changing the future for this sport for skydivers,” said Domjan, the instigator of the SolarStratos project and who co-piloted the plane. Read more
Terrorist used drone to spy on mosque before killing 51 people, streaming live on Facebook (Gizmodo)
Brenton Tarrant, the terrorist who livestreamed his massacre of 51 people on Facebook in March 2019, used a drone to spy on one of the two New Zealand mosques he attacked, according to newly public revelations by prosecutors this week. The news of Tarrant’s drone operation paints a disturbing picture of the extensive planning and surveillance Tarrant conducted to murder dozens of people, including small children, simply because they were Muslim. Tarrant’s youngest victim was just three years old.
Tarrant, a 29-year-old Australian national, flew a hobby drone over Christchurch’s Al Noor mosque roughly two months before the attacks, studying the entry and exit points, according to the Australian Financial Review. Tarrant slaughtered 44 people in and around the Al Noor mosque with an AR-15 rifle before moving on to a second mosque named Linwood and killing seven people there. Read more
RNC 2020: Melania Trump makes plea for racial harmony (BBC)
US First Lady Melania Trump has made a plea for racial unity, in a live speech from the White House to the Republican party convention.
“Stop the violence and looting,” she also said as protests continued over a police shooting in Wisconsin.
Mrs Trump urged Americans to stop making assumptions based on race and reflected candidly on US history. Read more
North Korea releases new Kim Jong Un photos amid reports he’s in a coma (NYPost)
North Korea’s state news agency has released new photos of Kim Jong Un amid reports he’s been in a coma for months and ceded some power to his sister.
The pics appear to show a healthy-looking Kim leading a meeting on Tuesday of the politburo of the Workers Party to call for prevention efforts against the coronavirus and a typhoon, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
They were syndicated through the Associated Press, which noted that independent journalists weren’t given access to the event and that the images couldn’t be independently verified. Read more
Notorious B.I.G. crown and Tupac love letters up for auction (BBC)
Love hip-hop and have a few hundred thousand pounds burning a hole in your pocket? This might be for you.
An iconic piece of hip-hop history is up for auction – the crown worn by the Notorious B.I.G. in his last recorded photoshoot.
The “King of New York” picture, as it came to be known, has featured on magazine covers, mixtapes, T-shirts, murals and even in the villain’s headquarters in Netflix’s Luke Cage.
It’s part of a Sotheby’s auction celebrating the impact of hip-hop that also includes love letters written by Tupac Shakur at the age of 16. Read more
Arnold Spielberg, father of Steven Spielberg, dead at 103 (NYPost)
Arnold Spielberg, the father of filmmaker Steven Spielberg, died on Tuesday, Variety has learned. He was 103.
Steven Spielberg was with his father on the night of his passing, telling him “You are our hearth. You are our home.” He also said of his father, who was an electrical engineer at General Electric for a time, “When I see a PlayStation, when I look at a cell phone — from the smallest calculator to an iPad — I look at my dad and I say, ‘My dad and a team of geniuses started that.’”
In addition to Steven, he had three daughters, Anne, Nancy and Sue. In a joint statement, Spielberg’s children said their father taught them to “love to research, expand their mind, keep their feet on the ground, but reach for the stars [and] look up.” Read more
Nigerian teenager rules Australia sports (Guardian)
Following on the exploits of mixed martial arts star, Israel Adesanya, in New Zealand, another Nigerian youngster, Prosper Nwoko, has taken the Australasian region’s sports by storm, this time in athletics.
Nwoko recently beat all comers to win the country’s Summer Set College Athletics Meet in Queensland.He returned at the time of 10.91 seconds to pick the 100m gold at the meet to continue his dominance of the U-18 category in the country.
The Queensland-based school boy sensation was also the winner of the boys’ U18 100m, as well as 200m at the 2019 Australia All Schools Championships, where he ran 10.77 (+2.4) to win the gold in the 100m race, and 21.49 seconds for the 200m. The feat has earned him scholarship from the Austrian government. Read more
Western and Southern Open: Serena Williams knocked out by Maria Sakkari (BBC)
Serena Williams said there were “really no excuses” as she was knocked out of the Western and Southern Open in the third round by Greek Maria Sakkari.
Thirteenth seed Sakkari had trailed by a set and a break before beating the American 5-7 7-6 (7-5) 6-1.
Sakkari will play Britain’s Johanna Konta in the quarter-finals.
“It was tough,” said Williams, who will chase a seventh US Open singles title next week. “I literally should have won that match. There was no excuse.
“It was hard, but I had so many opportunities to win, and I have to figure that one out, like how to start winning those matches again. Read more
Povetkin team wants 2nd Whyte fight on home turf after brutal KO (RT)
Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin has given his first press conference since his spectacular KO win over British favorite Dillian Whyte, in which he said he is focused on a rematch, which his team would prefer in Russia.
“It was perhaps the best shot of my career,” Alexander Povetkin, sporting darkened eyes but a slight smirk and flanked by manager Andrey Ryabinksiy, the head of Russian promotion World of Boxing, said when addressing journalists in Moscow on Wednesday.
Povektin is still revelling in the glory of perhaps a career-best knockout at the age of 40, after being seen as merely a worthy but beatable opponent by Dillian Whyte and his promotional company Matchroom, headed by Eddie Hearn, on the Jamaican-born Briton’s determined path to a world title shot. Read more
Lionel Messi: Barcelona players past and present publicly back captain’s decision to leave (Independent)
Barcelona players past and present have publicly backed Lionel Messi’s decision to leave the club.
Messi, arguably the greatest player in the sport’s history, formally informed the Spanish club on Tuesday afternoon that he wants to activate a clause in his previous contract whereby he can leave the club for free.
His decision has thrown Barcelona into chaos on and off the field after a disastrous trophyless season that saw two managers sacked and the club’s humiliated in the Champions League by Bayern Munich. Read more
Tour de France: Coronavirus testing concerns raised by Bora-Hansgrohe team boss (BBC)
The manager of German-based cycling team Bora-Hansgrohe has raised concerns about the validity of the coronavirus testing that will be used at the Tour de France, which starts on Saturday.
Ralph Denk withdrew his team from Tuesday’s Bretagne Classic because of a ‘false positive’ test result.
One of his riders was told they had tested positive for Covid-19 but a second test was negative.
“It looks like my concerns are being confirmed,” said Denk. Read more
Milan messiah Ibrahimovic ‘agrees $7.5mn deal’ that could keep star striker at Serie A giants until he turns 40 (RT)
Evergreen hitman Zlatan Ibrahimovic is set to end prolonged negotiations to rejoin AC Milan by agreeing a lucrative deal with the Serie A side, where he had a seismic impact after signing a surprise short-term contract last year.
Ibrahimovic’s return in December was viewed as a gamble for the toiling Italian giants, only for the bold move to be vindicated as the irrepressible Sweden legend scored 10 times in 18 appearances to lead Milan to an unlikely Europa League place in his second spell at the San Siro.
Now his widely-anticipated return for at least the 2020/21 season appears to have been confirmed, with the striker who will turn 39 in October reportedly agreeing to earn around $7.5 million during the campaign. Read more