Author: damazah@gmail.com

Long before today’s flourishing Nigerian art scene, a generation of artists chose uncertainty over security, and Oji Onoko’s The Artpreneurs chronicles how they turned the full-time studio into a viable profession. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes  Who among the local art scene’s cognoscenti still remembers Olu Ajayi’s Living Legends Project, the late artist’s ambitious attempt to preserve Nigeria’s collective memory through portraiture at a time when official history had too often fallen silent? Or Kehinde Sanwo’s painstaking documentation of Lagos’ Brazilian-style architecture, preserving the memory of a built heritage yielding to the pressures of urban development? Ajayi and Sanwo belong to a rare generation…

The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.These figures have been the point of contention after the Pentagon previously reduced the totals from 18 deaths and 482 wounded that had been recorded just…

The National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), sitting in Lagos, has ordered the immediate reinstatement of 70 soldiers of the Nigerian Army who were convicted by courts-martial in 2014 but later granted presidential pardon by former President Muhammadu Buhari. The court also directed the Nigerian Army to pay the soldiers all salaries, allowances and other emoluments accruing from July 18, 2022, up to the date of their actual physical reinstatement. According to a press release issued by Tayo Soyemi of Falana & Falana Chambers, in a landmark judgment delivered on July 20, 2026, Justice S.A. Yelwa held that the unconditional…

The integration of health data into consumer AI platforms is rapidly growing. gettyEarlier this week, OpenAI launched the Health platform in ChatGPT for US users. Individuals have always been able to use GPT to inquire about medical conditions, understand potential symptoms or gather other generalized information about healthcare or treatments. However, the new feature goes one step further: the platform allows users to securely connect supported health records and other external repositories, such as Apple Health, so that ChatGPT can understand a patient’s specific context, medical history and details regarding test results and healthcare data in order to provide better…

The government is prosecuting US citizen Sam Tunick for allegedly providing authorities with a “duress password” that wiped his phone when they tried to seize it at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 24th, 2025. Federal agents detained Tunick at the airport, allegedly questioning him about child exploitation images. However, a motion filed by Tunick’s lawyers argues this was simply “a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick’s connections” to the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta.The government is turning to a little-known and rarely-used statute that makes it illegal to destroy or damage property to stop authorities from seizing…

Andy Burnham has pledged to continue the UK’s “unwavering” support for Ukraine ahead of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday.Zelensky will become the prime minister’s first international visitor since he took office a week ago, which No 10 said “illustrates the strength of the relationship between the two nations”.They will visit a naval base, where Burnham will announce the sharing of the intellectual property behind the UK’s new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system, enabling Ukraine to produce the technology at scale.The prime minister said: “Britain stands with Ukrain, shoulder to shoulder, and our support remains unwavering. Russia should…

Dr Suzanne Bell, an organizational psychologist, leads the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center.What’s your morning routine?My morning time is very important to me. I get up without an alarm by 5am every day, and from 5 to 7.15 I sit and have my morning latte. It’s a focused time where I do work or some longer reading, or respond to personal emails and do paperwork. Two hours of completely uninterrupted time every morning is just wonderful.What did work look like today?I am the principal investigator for Artemis research, for crew health and readiness. It’s the…

The trade deadline is closing in, and the dominoes have begun to fall. First up is the rare sort of deal driven by need rather than finances between two teams on the fringes of contention. Given how much of the league in a similar spot, perhaps we’ll see more trades of that variety before the the clock strikes 6 p.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 3.Whatever happens, the best place to find out what it means for your Fantasy Baseball team is right here in the Trade Deadline Tracker. Over the next week-plus, Scott White and Chris Towers will use this…

Ryan Gosling will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as the titular character in a new Ghost Rider film, the media franchise has announced.Speaking during the surprise announcement at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, Gosling said it is a character he has “wanted to play for a very long time”.The film is due to be released in 2028, and will be the third about the motorcycle-riding anti-hero. It will follow the 2007 film of the same name starring Nicolas Cage, and its follow-up, 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.At a separate event at the convention, the actor Ryan Reynolds made…

Show yourself some love. Fuel your focus. Life’s too good for bad energy. Find your calm in the everyday chaos. Live fit. No, not new-age slogans or something you’d find scribbled in neon on the wall of a cocktail bar, but marketing taglines slapped across cans of functional soft drinks. Walk into any supermarket or newsagent and there they are, bright and cheerful, right next to the Tango, promising everything from improved mental clarity and zen-like calm, to a blast of highly caffeinated energy as part of your sandwich-and-a-snack lunchtime meal deal. Influencers love them. Your favourite podcasters are sponsored…