Author: damazah@gmail.com

As an aviator, Wally Funk, who has died aged 87, was a trailblazing pioneer for women, breaking barriers for eight decades of a remarkable career. “Aviation has been my whole life; I eat and breathe it,” she said in her 2020 memoir, Higher, Faster, Longer (written with Loretta Hall).She earned her pilot’s licence as a teenager, at 20 was the US military’s first female flight instructor, in 1971 became the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) first female flight inspector, and three years later was the first woman instructor for the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB). But hanging over these accomplishments was…

England’s forward #09 Harry Kane reacts after losing the 2026 World Cup football tournament semi-final match between England and Argentina at the Atlanta Stadium in Atlanta on July 15, 2026. (Photo by Odd ANDERSEN / AFP) Harry Kane said he was “gutted” for England and their fans after his team were beaten 2-1 by defending champions Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals on Wednesday. Anthony Gordon’s strike had put the Three Lions on the cusp of a first men’s World Cup final since they lifted the 1966 trophy but Lionel Messi inspired a dramatic turnaround in Atlanta. He set up…

The tenor Karim Sulayman and guitarist Sean Shibe together bring a microcosm of world heritage to the concert platform: English, Japanese, Scottish, Lebanese and American. Their recital programme Broken Branches offers similarly a multitude of perspectives, both remembered and imagined. Its title comes from a poem by Sinan Antoon on being an Iraqi refugee in New York, set to music in 2022 by Layale Chaker – a song that came at the end of a sequence beginning with Li Beirut, a powerful lament for the Lebanese capital. Yet if that suggests a programme that’s heavy going, this performance ultimately leaned…

The police in Cross River State have launched a public sensitisation campaign against jungle justice, urging residents to hand criminal suspects to the police instead of taking the law into their own hands. The campaign, led by the police spokesperson in the state, Sunday Eitokpa, comes amid recurring incidents of mob violence in the state, including recent killings of suspected criminals and persons falsely accused of offences. In a video shared on his Facebook page about a week ago, Mr Eitokpa was seen addressing residents through a public address system at what appeared to be a market square. “Justice, not jungle justice.…

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has commenced another round of striking off companies from Nigeria’s register of incorporated entities, placing 100,000 companies at risk of deregistration over failure to meet statutory filing obligations. In a public notice issued Wednesday, the commission said the exercise, tagged Batch Six, affects 100,000 companies whose names have been published on its website. “The affected One Hundred Thousand (100,000) companies can be accessed at the Commission’s website,” CAC stated. In February, CAC said that it struck off more than 400,000 companies from Nigeria’s corporate register in 2025 over inactivity and non-compliance with regulatory requirements. It…

“From here to anywhere” is the motto of Debert’s business park, but it feels like the middle of nowhere.Just 113km (70 miles) north of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast, it was once a military base where thousands of soldiers trained during World War Two. Now it’s a mix old buildings and empty parking lots, bordered by thin, coniferous woods.But there is promise of a luxurious and glamorous future in the large grassy hump popping up at one end of the park. Canadian crypto mogul Jonathan Baha’i plans to convert the 64,000 square-foot nuclear bomb shelter into crisis-proof condos…

•NUPRC, NOSDRA disagree on volume By Ediri Ejoh There are indications that the Federal Government’s ambition to transform Nigeria into a gas-driven economy by 2030 is facing significant challenges, as the country lost an estimated 3,100 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity generation potential to persistent gas flaring by oil companies in May 2026. This came as figures released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) differed from those of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) on the volume of gas flared during the period. While the NUPRC recorded 17.6 million standard cubic feet (MMSCF) of gas flared in…

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds in Britain are to be encouraged to observe a midnight to 6am social media curfew but will be able to opt out by changing their account settings.From next spring, they will be urged to refrain from using certain apps, with the block being switched on by default. But the curfew will not be mandatory and can be overridden.The government also wants “addictive” features such as autoplay and infinite scroll to be disabled in the latest stage of its efforts “to protect the next generation” from online harms.We spoke to 16- and 17-year-olds about the social media curfew…

A monkey that has striking pinkish-orange lips and a black face – and lives in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo – has been confirmed as a new species to science.The black-furred primate was spotted and photographed hidden away in the high tree canopy of dense tropical forests in Lomami National Park, in the central east of the country.Conservationists working there first reported seeing this unusual-looking animal back in 2008. But they captured just one blurry photograph.After another sighting 10 years later, an international team set out to find and study the monkey and revealed that it was…

The 2026 ESPYS celebrates the biggest moments from the past year in sports for the event’s return to New York City.Editor’s Picks1 RelatedHosted by comedian and actor Marcello Hernández, this year’s ceremony takes place at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. Along with the Savannah Bananas opening, the 2026 ESPYS will feature music from DJ Premier and performances by New York hip-hop legends Ghostface Killah, Slick Rick and De La Soul as athletes and celebrities gather to celebrate the year’s biggest moments in sports.Honorees for the 2026 ESPYS include the late former NBA player Jason Collins with the…