Author: damazah@gmail.com

During the Friday episode of Real Time, Bill Maher addressed Dolly Parton’s death in an unsavory manner. He began his monologue by discussing current events of the week, specifically the United States’ trade war with Canada. “All this is going on, and all America could really talk about this week was how sad it is we lost Dolly Parton,” Maher said. “Everybody around the country, even around the world” was honoring the late singer, he said. “London, they’re doing things. The Santa Monica ferris wheel is lit up with hearts. The Empire State Building was put up in pink. The…

The questions1 Which design illustrates the tragic love story of Koong-Se and Chang?2 Which British woman was nominated for all four Egot awards, but didn’t win any?3 The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is in which country? 4 Which Shakespeare play opens in Africa?5 Which football stadium is officially the Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho?6 The sun’s nuclear fusion is primarily fuelled by which element?7 Which naval dockyard closed in 1984 after more than 400 years?8 Who “rocks, but gently” in a 1967 album title?What links:9 Jari Hill, Tanggula mountains; Chongqing; Wuhan; Nanjing; Shanghai?10 F&F; George; Nutmeg; Tu? 11 Eva Boyd,…

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt Fresh controversy has erupted among stakeholders in Ogoniland, Rivers State, over the planned resumption of oil exploration in the area, with KAGOTE and the facilitators of the Ogoni Dialogue Committee (ODC) exchanging sharply worded statements on the credibility and transparency of the process. The latest development came as the Ogoni Youth Federation (OYF) Worldwide announced plans to convene a national congress of Ogoni youths to address emerging disagreements over the proposed oil resumption, while demanding 500 direct employment opportunities from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), instead of the 40 slots reportedly allocated to…

A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to pay more than $172,000 (£127,000) for using inside information to bet on US President Donald Trump’s speeches.Gabriel Perez was found to have made trades on what the president would say during addresses between December 2025 and February 2026 on Kalshi – a prediction markets platform where users can bet on real-world events.Its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said Perez would have to surrender profits of $107,539.02 (£79,452) and pay a civil penalty of $65,000 (£48,000).The White House has not yet commented. In July, then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt said…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles after defending the company in a landmark social media addiction trial, Feb. 19, 2026.Jon Putman | Anadolu | Getty ImagesMeta’s watershed social media trial just wrapped up in California, but now attention is shifting to the wider industry with TikTok, YouTube and Snap next on the firing line.The Instagram and Facebook owner settled in week two of a trial brought by a coalition of tens of U.S. states alleging that the tech giant had misled the public about the harms its platforms posed to younger users. The agreement…

Apple increased the price for a monthly subscription to Apple TV by $2, to $15, today. Annual prices increased by 20 percent from $99 to $119. Current subscribers will receive one month’s notice before paying the new prices, Apple said, per Variety. Apple’s most recent price hike was in August 2025, when monthly prices went from $10 to $13. Monthly prices also increased in October 2023 and October 2022. Apple TV (then called Apple TV+) started in 2019 for (a seemingly financially unsustainable) $5/month. Apple TV doesn’t have commercials and is still cheaper than many of its biggest rivals, like…

Skin cancer cells viewed under a microscope. Such images can reveal how the cancer spreads.Credit: NCI Center for Cancer Research/NCI/SPLThe announcement on 19 August that people with melanoma who received a personalized vaccine lived longer without a cancer recurrence than those who didn’t have the vaccine is a sensation for the field. The results from pharmaceutical companies Merck, in Rahway, New Jersey, and Moderna, which is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, also made a big splash among researchers and people with cancer more widely.What makes the findings so exciting and important is that they came from a large, late-stage phase III…

Head Coach Hakeem Busari has invited 26 players to the camp of the Nigeria U17 women national team, Flamingos, as preparations commence for their participation at this year’s FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup, to be staged by Morocco, 17th October – 7th November. The Flamingos defeated their counterparts from Bénin Republic home and away in the final round of the African qualification campaign to book a ticket to the global finals. Since the competition was launched in New Zealand in 2008, Nigeria has only been missing from one edition of the global finals – the 2018 finals in Uruguay. All…

Shane Jarman was up a ladder decorating a Christmas tree at the school where he was deputy headteacher when he got a call asking him to come to Rotherham hospital ASAP. It was December 2007 and Jarman’s wife, Claire, had given birth the previous day to their first child, a girl called Emma, so of course he rushed to the phone. All was well, he was told, but that “everything would become clear” when he got to the hospital.Once there, his wife told him – somewhat unexpectedly – that they were going to meet Dolly Parton. “And literally within what…

Family life has had a bigger impact on how I cook at home than almost anything else. There’s a lot of pasta on the menu these days, and potato wedges with different sauces. A lot of meatballs. And a great many pancakes – more than I would have ever predicted before I had kids.My weekend pancakes – which made their way into my book Simple Too – are supposed to be a batch-cooking exercise: lots made on Sunday, then reheated through the week, in the toaster or a dry pan on the stove, so breakfast is more or less solved until Friday. That’s the theory. In practice, all 22 pancakes…