Author: damazah@gmail.com

Two days after being placed on a paid leave of absence, Matt Mullenweg says he has been reinstated as CEO of Automattic, according to a Slack message seen by TechCrunch. WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard confirmed Mullenweg’s return to the CEO role in a Friday post on X, which the official WordPress account shared and Mullenweg reposted.As 404 Media reported on Wednesday, Mullenweg had told staff in Slack that morning that CFO Mark Davies “conspired” with the board of directors, who voted to “put me on a paid leave of absence.” (Mullenweg said he voted against that.) He also told…

By Adegboyega Adeleye Paul Ibe, spokesperson to former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has disputed the claim that President Bola Tinubu simply “donated” the Action Congress, AC, to Atiku to contest the 2007 presidential election. Ibe made the clarification in a statement posted on his official X handle on Friday, following an assertion by Arise News anchor Rufai Oseni on The Morning Show that Tinubu helped Atiku secure the AC platform to contest the 2007 presidential election. He said the account that Tinubu, then Lagos State governor and now President and presidential…

Friday night’s main event at Arthur Ashe Stadium pitted two of the top Americans against each other for the right to face Alexander Zverev on Sunday for the US Open title. No. 8 seed Ben Shelton and No. 11 seed Frances Tiafoe both made it to the semis in dramatic fashion. The anticipation for the match was as high as any non-final in recent memory, as the winner would get a chance to snap the 23-year drought since the last American man won a grand slam title. It was the first ever grand slam semifinal to feature two Black American men,…

Comedy helped Caleb Hearon process his own father’s unexpected death. So when the comic and actor co-wrote Trash Mountain with Ruby Caster, Hearon had to consider how much to lean into comedy as tears roll down his cheeks while starring alongside Zooey Deschenal in Kris Rey’s dramedy about love and grief. “No. If anything, I’m eager to prove that I’m not just a clown,” Hearon, the star of The Devil Wears Prada sequel and an HBO Max comedy special, told a Toronto Film Festival audience on Friday night after the world premiere of his comedic weepie. Caster told the Scotiabank…

The South African Police Service (SAPS) says it is extraditing six Nigerians suspected of being members of the Black Axe ‌organised crime network to the United States. The service disclosed in a statement on Friday that the Nigerians are being extradited for their involvement in an online romance scam and cyberfraud which targeted over 100 American women. It said the organised crime network defrauded victims of more than $6.2 million. The victims are mostly businesspeople and pensioners. “The six men are alleged to be members of the Black Axe organised criminal network and are #WANTED by the US authorities in…

Four police officers and seven civilians were killed when suspected armed bandits attacked Ayilamo community in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State, the police have confirmed. The attack occurred on Thursday evening and lasted about seven hours before the attackers were repelled and fled into the surrounding forest, the Benue State Police Command said. The command said the attackers invaded the community at about 6:12 p.m. on 10 September. Officers from the Police Mobile Force, tactical teams and conventional police engaged the assailants in a sustained gun battle, according to a statement issued on Friday by the command’s spokesperson,…

For twelve years, Father Sandro Ferretto stood before the altars of Baringo County, Kenya, clad in liturgical vestments. As an Italian-born Catholic missionary, the 55-year-old priest devoted his days to spiritual devotion, community service, and solemn vows—chief among them, a vow of celibacy. He had crossed continents to guide souls, bless unions, and offer prayers in the heart of the Rift Valley. Yet, life often writes scripts far beyond the confines of human expectation. On September 6, 2026, the quiet village of Seretion in Baringo South erupted into song, dance, and cultural celebration. Father Sandro had traded his priestly robes…

Ars: You have another mission working with JAXA, ISSA-J1, to go rendezvous and inspect two decommissioned Japanese satellites. How is that different than inspecting a rocket body? Blackerby: ADRAS-J2 is going to an oblong rocket body. It’s not spinning. ISSA-J1 is going to satellites, and it’s going to have to approach something that has a solar array sticking out, so we’re expecting that it could be spinning. So the RPO (rendezvous and proximity operations) is definitely going to be more complex. We need to be able to develop this tech to precisely approach this large piece of debris that likely is not going to…

Almost 30 years ago, the Labour titan Robin Cook announced his arrival at the Foreign Office by laying out what would become described as an “ethical foreign policy”. The UK, he said, “must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves”. Human rights would be “at the heart of our foreign policy”.In the 25 years since Cook was demoted, Britain has had a further 14 foreign secretaries – including seven in the past six years – few of whom can claim to have placed progressive ideals at the heart of their actions.…

Pigeons have been leaving a town’s High Street looking dirty and efforts to deter the birds from congregating have failed, a mayor has said.Declan Craggs, the mayor of Diss, Norfolk, said Diss Town Council has tried using ultrasonic sound devices and employing a falconer’s hawks to scare the pigeons away from Mere Street, but nothing has worked.While many locals agree with the council’s actions, others feel the pigeons were being unfairly demonised.Earlier this year, Norwich City Council has also similarly struggled to find a solution for a large population of pigeons at the market. Craggs said: “It is about taking…