Author: damazah@gmail.com

The families of those killed in an RAF Chinook crash in 1994 have urged Andy Burnham to end Britain’s “cover-up culture” and order an independent review into the disaster.Twenty-nine serving military personnel died when the Chinook HC2 helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in south-west Scotland during a flight from Northern Ireland.The two pilots were initially blamed for the crash but exonerated after an inquiry in 2011, which did not determine its cause.Liam Fox, the former Conservative defence secretary who ordered that official review, said last month there were now “deep concerns” that “vital information” could have been withheld.Fox,…

Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior is reportedly ready to turn down interest from Arsenal as he looks to extend his stay at the Spanish giants despite uncertainty over his contract. The Brazilian has emerged as one of several attacking options on Arsenal’s shortlist, with reports suggesting the Premier League club have been monitoring his situation. However, the Gunners are yet to make a formal approach. Vinicius has entered the final 12 months of his current contract with Real Madrid, and negotiations over a new deal have yet to be concluded. According to Diario AS, the 26-year-old has no desire to…

Marvel boss Kevin Feige recently told Empire how David Jonsson was cast as the next Black Panther. He explained that “The Long Walk” star met with “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler in a “secret meeting,” and that the Oscar winner quickly identified Jonsson as his next leading man. “We hadn’t started a search yet,” Feige explained. “Ryan was working on ‘Sinners,’ and when Ryan works on a project he’s all in. So the presumption very much was we would sit with him after ‘Sinners’ came out, after the Academy campaign. We were waiting ’til after the Academy Awards to sit…

Long before today’s flourishing Nigerian art scene, a generation of artists chose uncertainty over security, and Oji Onoko’s The Artpreneurs chronicles how they turned the full-time studio into a viable profession. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes  Who among the local art scene’s cognoscenti still remembers Olu Ajayi’s Living Legends Project, the late artist’s ambitious attempt to preserve Nigeria’s collective memory through portraiture at a time when official history had too often fallen silent? Or Kehinde Sanwo’s painstaking documentation of Lagos’ Brazilian-style architecture, preserving the memory of a built heritage yielding to the pressures of urban development? Ajayi and Sanwo belong to a rare generation…

The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.These figures have been the point of contention after the Pentagon previously reduced the totals from 18 deaths and 482 wounded that had been recorded just…

The National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), sitting in Lagos, has ordered the immediate reinstatement of 70 soldiers of the Nigerian Army who were convicted by courts-martial in 2014 but later granted presidential pardon by former President Muhammadu Buhari. The court also directed the Nigerian Army to pay the soldiers all salaries, allowances and other emoluments accruing from July 18, 2022, up to the date of their actual physical reinstatement. According to a press release issued by Tayo Soyemi of Falana & Falana Chambers, in a landmark judgment delivered on July 20, 2026, Justice S.A. Yelwa held that the unconditional…

The integration of health data into consumer AI platforms is rapidly growing. gettyEarlier this week, OpenAI launched the Health platform in ChatGPT for US users. Individuals have always been able to use GPT to inquire about medical conditions, understand potential symptoms or gather other generalized information about healthcare or treatments. However, the new feature goes one step further: the platform allows users to securely connect supported health records and other external repositories, such as Apple Health, so that ChatGPT can understand a patient’s specific context, medical history and details regarding test results and healthcare data in order to provide better…

The government is prosecuting US citizen Sam Tunick for allegedly providing authorities with a “duress password” that wiped his phone when they tried to seize it at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 24th, 2025. Federal agents detained Tunick at the airport, allegedly questioning him about child exploitation images. However, a motion filed by Tunick’s lawyers argues this was simply “a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick’s connections” to the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta.The government is turning to a little-known and rarely-used statute that makes it illegal to destroy or damage property to stop authorities from seizing…

Andy Burnham has pledged to continue the UK’s “unwavering” support for Ukraine ahead of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday.Zelensky will become the prime minister’s first international visitor since he took office a week ago, which No 10 said “illustrates the strength of the relationship between the two nations”.They will visit a naval base, where Burnham will announce the sharing of the intellectual property behind the UK’s new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system, enabling Ukraine to produce the technology at scale.The prime minister said: “Britain stands with Ukrain, shoulder to shoulder, and our support remains unwavering. Russia should…

Dr Suzanne Bell, an organizational psychologist, leads the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center.What’s your morning routine?My morning time is very important to me. I get up without an alarm by 5am every day, and from 5 to 7.15 I sit and have my morning latte. It’s a focused time where I do work or some longer reading, or respond to personal emails and do paperwork. Two hours of completely uninterrupted time every morning is just wonderful.What did work look like today?I am the principal investigator for Artemis research, for crew health and readiness. It’s the…