Author: damazah@gmail.com

Cities and counties around the US are angry at the Trump administration over a proposal to override local rules that govern the deployment of wired broadband networks. The Federal Communications Commission has been taking public comments on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes to preempt state and local permitting rules. The FCC argues that too many local governments “excessively delay approvals and seek to extract exorbitant sums from providers, resulting in costs that render some deployments infeasible.” The FCC plan is supported by broadband providers, but local governments told the FCC that it would override rules that protect public…

Burnham told reporters his own speech to the UN General Assembly later would reflect on the decade since the Brexit vote and the “turbulence comes when outside actors seek to manipulate, to distort facts, influence the British democratic process”. “Going into the next decade, we need to be clear-eyed about that and become stronger and more on the front foot about challenging that,” he said.Asked if he would rule out making a pledge to rejoin the EU at the next general election, Burnham said: “Our focus at the moment is on a UK-EU summit which we hope will take place…

Despite their slow reputation, the breeding efforts are off to a flying start, Eden said.”I brought 24 snails back from Wales at the start of July,” she said.”It was a six hour drive, and by the time I’d arrived back at the park I had about 12 egg pods in the carry containers that we were using. They’d laid eggs literally whilst we were driving.”We started, with one of the ponds, with just six adult snails. We recently moved 130 babies out of that pond to start a new colony.”

Across Africa, rising debt burdens and the high cost of borrowing have renewed concerns about the terms under which governments take loans and how those debts are managed. For instance, Nigeria’s public debt stood at N159.35 trillion as of 31 March, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). Of this amount, N87.40 trillion was domestic debt, while N71.95 trillion was external debt. PREMIUM TIMES reported that African countries spend about $90 billion every year servicing debt and pay another $75 billion in additional interest because of the high risk premium attached to borrowing, At the sixth African Conference on Debt…

As I crouched between the cameras, determined to catch Donald Trump’s eye and ask a question, I listened to a president seeking to be magnanimous.Remember, Trump can and does do warmth when he wants to, as well as acerbic.Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a mayor a matter of months ago, sat next to the most powerful man in the world.Put like that, it sounds believable when he said in advance he was looking forward to the meeting, but there must have been a jab of nerves too.Burnham did look a little nervous as us reporters trooped into the room, but then,…

At a primary healthcare centre in Kaduna State, Zainab Garba remembers what health workers used to do when a woman began bleeding heavily after childbirth. They would provide initial care, explain the seriousness of the situation to her relatives and prepare her for referral to a higher-level health facility. For Ms Garba, an antenatal care provider at PHC Abdukwari in Sabon Gari LGA, who also assists with deliveries, there were limits to what health workers at her level could do. But she said that began to change after she was trained to use the E-MOTIVE approach to detect and manage…

The United Kingdom has joined France and Mexico’s push for restrictions on the use of the UN Security Council veto in cases involving genocide and crimes against humanity. The French Foreign Ministry said late Monday that the UK has joined the French-Mexican initiative, which seeks to prevent the use of the veto from blocking the Security Council from acting in cases of mass atrocities. This initiative proposes restricting the veto for permanent members of the Council in cases involving genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. “A single Permanent Member of the Security Council can…

• Cardoso declares rate adjustment a “reset and recalibration” of monetary policy rather than shift to easing stance  •Says CBN reforms have restored confidence, rebuilt external reserves to $55bn amid FX stability    •LCCI, Rewane, Oye, Uwaleke, Yusuf, Oyerinde, others applaud apex bank James Emejo in Abuja, Nume Ekeghe and Dike Onwuamaeze in Lagos Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday slashed the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), the benchmark interest rate, by 350 basis points to 23 per cent, from 26.5 percent. CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso announced the decision at the end of the two-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee…

Anthropic further claims that the savings are closer to 40 percent compared to Opus 5 for typical workloads at default settings, because in addition to the cost of tokens going down, Opus 5.5 also uses fewer tokens when completing tasks. Opus 5.5 is said to be notably capable in “high risk areas” like cybersecurity and biology, so the same protections that applied to Fable 5.1 will also apply here—your requests might be automatically and transparently routed to an older model if they get flagged as treading into protected territory. GPT-6 Sol and Luna: A modest, cost-focused upgrade The release of…

A thinktank linked to Reform UK has called for the abolition of the state pension and £75bn worth of sweeping tax cuts in a “radical” report likely to influence the party’s platform for the next election.The Centre for a Better Britain’s (CFABB) report – which also calls for weaker rules for UK banks and Trump-style investment accounts offering £1,000 to newborns – will be formally launched at a private event with City executives on Wednesday.The 183-page report, entitled “Boosting Britain”, proposes abolishing taxes typically levied on wealthy Britons, including capital gains tax and inheritance tax, which it says disrupts family…