Author: damazah@gmail.com

Hollywood’s finest — the people accustomed to massive eight-figure checks and exotic movie sets — are now betting on something much smaller: microdramas. Microdramas are short, scripted series designed to be watched on phones. Episodes typically run just a few minutes, and often feature soap opera-style plots, dramatic twists, and cliffhangers designed to keep viewers watching, and often paying, for the next episode. The format took off in China before rapidly gaining traction internationally. Omdia estimates that U.S. revenue generated by microdramas is expected to reach $1.5 billion this year. A growing number of apps have emerged to capitalize, including…

Filip Hrgovic is the first Croatian to become a world heavyweight boxing champion after beating Briton Moses Itauma.Published On 30 Aug 202630 Aug 2026Filip Hrgovic of Croatia beat Britain’s Moses Itauma via a ninth-round stoppage to win the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) world heavyweight title in a thrilling contest in London.Itauma, bidding to become the second-youngest heavyweight world champion after Mike Tyson, was on top during the fight’s early stages but had to be carried from the ring on a stretcher and taken to hospital from the O2 Arena on Saturday.Facing the toughest test of his 15-fight professional career…

Sex chromosome evolution is among the most dynamic genomic innovations in vertebrates, yet why some lineages evolve XY while others evolve ZW remains unclear. Using chromosome-level genomes from 19 geckos, we found that gecko sex chromosomes originated …

Filip Hrgovic produced a stunning upset at the O2 Arena in London, stopping highly rated British-Nigerian prospect Moses Itauma in the ninth round to claim the vacant IBF heavyweight world title. Itauma entered the contest widely regarded as the favourite, with many expecting the unbeaten 21-year-old to continue his rapid rise and become the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in boxing history. But Hrgovic had other plans. The Croatian weathered Itauma’s early threat before gradually turning the contest in his favour as the fight progressed. Itauma appeared to expend significant energy trying to maintain his pace, and by the later rounds,…

Spoiler warning: This story contains details of the winner(s) of Celebrity HuntedStrictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has said winning Celebrity Hunted has helped her believe she can “achieve anything” following her battle with cancer.The 36-year-old professional dancer won the latest series of the Channel 4 challenge show alongside Strictly’s Carlos Gu, claiming a joint victory with actor Brian Conley and his daughter, comedian Lucy Conley.The programme sees celebrities go on the run while an elite team of hunters tries to track them down, in aid of Stand Up To Cancer.The joint victory marked the first time in the show’s…

*Report: Russia helps junta to retake military base Sunday Ehigiator Niger Republic’s ruling junta yesterday said that it “gradually took back control” after mutinying soldiers attacked key sites around the capital including the presidential palace, after the city was rocked by hours of heavy gunfire. Reports claimed the members of Niger’s presidential guard, helped by Russian forces, recaptured a key military base in the capital, Niamey, from the mutinous soldiers. “The presidential guard has retaken control of the air base with the help of the Russians,” a diplomatic source told AFP.The source added that several of the rebelling soldiers had…

The EBU also found further gangs across Europe using the hawala system for criminal activity. One former money launderer previously involved in European hawala networks, whom we are calling Frank, told the EBU he had been involved in transactions totalling several hundred million euros.His first introduction to the hawala system had been at an office in a small town outside Rotterdam, he said. There, five or six messengers had arrived with money in about an hour and a half, transferring at least a million euros, he estimated.”What I found out later is that it’s not just about money. It’s about…

    Sola Enikanolaiye, minister of State for Foreign Affairs, has reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, as a strategic platform for solidarity, peace, development and the collective interests of member states. According to a statement from the Minister’s Media Office, Enikanolaiye stated this while delivering Nigeria’s Official Statement at the 23rd Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The minister commended the OIC leadership for convening the Extraordinary Session, noting that Nigeria’s participation is informed by its Islamic heritage, domestic diversity, and broader commitment to multilateralism, peaceful resolution of…

It used to be that Vijay Pande was better known in academic circles than investor circles. That changed pretty abruptly a dozen years ago, when Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz — who’d spent their firm’s first five years explicitly avoiding healthcare and life sciences — decided the category was worth betting on after all and handed the keys to Pande. At the time, he was a Stanford chemistry professor who was best known for building Folding@home, the distributed-computing project that turned millions of home PCs into a supercomputer for disease research. Over the next decade-plus, he grew a16z’s bet into…

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told the BBC that PC Andrew Harper’s killers will remain behind bars as he announced changes to the early release scheme aimed at easing prison overcrowding.In an exclusive interview with BBC Breakfast, Burnham said anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, will be excluded from the scheme, which would have made two of the officer’s killers eligible for early release.Burnham said extra prison space would be created by deporting foreign prisoners and releasing some inmates serving indefinite sentences.It follows months of campaigning from PC Harper’s family and former colleagues to block the…