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Gunman kills at least 8 in mass shooting at California rail yard
At least eight people were killed when a transit employee opened fire at his co-workers at a light rail yard in San Jose, California, on Wednesday morning, the county sheriff’s office said, in the latest in a string of mass shootings this spring. The gunman, who like the victims was an employee of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), was also dead, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputy Russell Davis said at a news conference. He did not say how the gunman died or whether police officers fired their weapons at the scene. The name and age of the suspect were also not disclosed. The first emergency calls reporting the shooting at the VTA light rail yard near the city’s main airport came through shortly after 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time (1330 GMT). A bomb squad was searching the yar...
Ondo governor: No land in southern Nigeria will be ceded to invaders masquerading as herdsmen
The Ondo State Governor and Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum, Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has declared that “no inch of the space delineated and known, currently, as South West, and indeed the whole South, will be ceded to a band of invaders masquerading as herdsmen under any guise.” Akeredolu made the declaration in a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant Special Duties and Strategies, Dr Doyin Odebowale. The declaration was sequel to a statement signed by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, on the position of President Muhammadu Buhari, on the farmer-herder clashes and what was termed as “Deep Rooted Solutions to the herdsmen attacks”. Shehu had in the statement revealed the presidency’s position that ranching and revival...
Rivers governor: PDP will suffer if I leave
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has said that his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will suffer if he leaves for another party. Wike made the assertion on Monday while briefing newsmen in Government House, Port Harcourt, the state’s capital. Newsmen report that the governor’s claim is coming barely one week after his Cross River counterpart, Ben Ayade, dumped the part for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. The governor also claimed that he would win election in any party he joins, stressing that PDP in Rivers State lack political detractor. Governor Wike, who described himself as asset to the national opposition party, accused some members of the PDP’s National Working Committee (NWC) of been “tax collectors”. He said, “If I leave PDP tomorrow, the party will suffer… S...
Tyson Fury: I will still fight Anthony Joshua this year
Tyson Fury has insisted that he still intends to fight Anthony Joshua this year despite committing to a trilogy fight against Deontay Wilder in July. Only last weekend, Fury announced that his much-anticipated heavyweight showdown with Joshua would take place in Saudi Arabia in August. Soon afterwards, however, Wilder won an arbitration hearing which ruled that Fury was contractually obliged to fight him for a third time. Fury’s first bout against Wilder came in December 2018 and ended in a controversial draw. In the rematch last year, the self-styled Gypsy King stopped his opponent in round seven to win the WBC heavyweight and Ring magazine titles. A planned trilogy fight was initially postponed by the coronavirus pandemic, before disputes over the rescheduling saw Fury declare that he’d ...
Belarus’s forced landing of Lithuania-bound Ryanair plane sparks outrage
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania to land on Sunday in Minsk, where a Belarusian opposition activist on board was detained, prompting international condemnation. EU member Lithuania urged the European Union and NATO to respond, Germany called for an immediate explanation and Poland’s prime minister called it a “reprehensible act of state terrorism”. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Belarus’s action was “utterly unacceptable”. The aircraft, flying from Athens to Vilnius, had almost reached Lithuania when it changed direction and was escorted to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, after reports that it had explosives on board, according to an online flight tracker and BelTA state news agency. Belarusian law e...
Pastor Adeboye hails Kogi governor’s handling of coronavirus
Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer, Redeem Christian Church of God, has lauded the governance and leadership style of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, describing him as a man of faith. Speaking when he visited Bello on Saturday in Lokoja, Adeboye also commended the governor for his religious tolerance. Adeboye said that the show of faith by Bello in handling the Coronavirus pandemic was a rare demonstration from a political leader. “We have heard and seen your show of faith in God, particularly in dealing with the Coronavirus. It takes the man of faith to have acted the way you did and we are very, very pleased with you. “We have also heard the news of how you have been relating to people of every faith to the extent that you built the first chapel in the Government House, Lokoja, ...
South East group warns governors, others angling for vice presidency
As discussions surrounding the 2023 presidential election gathers pace, South East Governors and other politicians from the region have been warned against ‘angling for the position of Vice President’. The Association of South East Past Presidents-General, which gave the warning in Enugu at the weekend, said the zone would not accept any one reducing it to ‘second fiddle political status’ in 2023. At an official public presentation of the former Chief Judge of Anambra State, Justice Peter Umeadi, who is also a Professor of Law, the association said the general consensus by equity, justice and fair play was that the next President of the country should emerge from the South East. The former PGs, who lead the over 2000 Igbo communities in the past, stressed that with such understanding, it w...
Armed men rob expatriate, kill orderly, driver in Umuahia
Dare-devil armed men attacked an expatriate in Umuahia, Abia State, on Friday, killing his police orderly and driver. The police spokesperson in Abia, Godfrey Ogbonna, who confirmed the attack, said the bandits robbed the expatriate of N3 million. Ogbonna, a superintendent of police, told reporters that the expatriate, said to be a Chinese, escaped unhurt. The man was said to have come from Aba to withdraw money from a bank in Umuahia and was returning, when the bandits trailed him. It was learnt that the man’s SUV was intercepted in a traffic hold-up on Mission Hill, near the office of the Nigerian Correctional Service at about noon. A witness said, “They intercepted the man at Mission Hill and shot his orderly dead, while his driver sustained gunshot injuries.” The driver was said to hav...
NDLEA intercepts 4.9 million capsules of Tramadol
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Wednesday said it intercepted 4,995,200 capsules of tramadol weighing 2,498.2kilogrammes at the Onne port, Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The spokesperson of the agency, Femi Babafemi, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja. He said efforts by the NDLEA to block access and availability of illicit substances led to the interception of the container conveying the illicit drugs. Babafemi said the seizure of the illicit drug concealed in 1,387 cartons on Tuesday, May 18 followed a joint examination by NDLEA operatives and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) personnel. He said the drugs were concealed in a container marked MRKU 0764717 which had been on the agency’s watch list. In another development, a 42-year-old man, Muntari Hamidu, has been arrest...
Bodies of coronavirus victims among those dumped in India’s Ganges – document
Bodies of COVID-19 victims have been found dumped in some Indian rivers, a state government said in a letter seen by Reuters, the first official acknowledgement of an alarming practice it said may stem from poverty and fear of the disease in villages. Images of corpses drifting down the Ganges river, which Hindus consider holy, have shocked a nation reeling under the world’s worst surge in infections. Although media have linked the recent increase in the numbers of such bodies to the pandemic, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 240 million people, has until now not publicly revealed the cause of the deaths. “The administration has information that bodies of those who have succumbed to COVID-19 or any other disease are being thrown into rivers instead of being disposed of as per p...
Delta: Man apprehended for stabbing 15-year old girl
A middle-aged man has been arrested by the Police in Asaba, the Delta State capital for allegedly stabbing a 15-year old girl, Omelagu Chidinma at the neck region, below her lower jaw for reportedly refusing his love advances. The middle-aged man who was simply identified as Asika, according to a source is a neighbour of the victim’s parents at Infant Jesus area of Asaba. Revealing that the victim’s family are living in a batcha (bamboo house), the source who pleaded anonymity, said “trouble started when Asika woke up in the morning and accused the victim whom he had been asking out, of littering the compound. “So he called Chidinma but she did not answer because she was on the phone. When Chidinma now came out to wash her clothes, he slapped her. That was how they started fighting. “He hi...
Dua Lipa wins album of the year at Brit Awards
Dua Lipa won the coveted British Album of the Year prize at the Brit Awards on Tuesday, in a ceremony that saw female artists dominate the mixed categories. Around 4,000 guests streamed into London’s O2 Arena for the biggest night in British pop music, as the ceremony welcomed guests for the first time in two years as part of the government’s pilot scheme easing coronavirus restrictions. The Brit Awards have been criticised in the past for nominations seen as skewing heavily male, but this year almost all of the main prizes went to female artists. Little Mix won best British group — becoming the first female act ever to do so. Singer and poet Arlo Parks took the Breakthrough Artist award, and best international group went to the American band HAIM. In another history-making moment, Taylor ...
