Author: damazah@gmail.com

On a plinth that once awaited a king, Tschabalala Self’s “Lady in Blue” now offers London its contemporary image of womanhood — at a time when an altogether different understanding of the woman’s place is asking to be heard. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes Really, it is a sad commentary on the present age that New York-based artist Tschabalala Self describes “Lady in Blue” as her representation of the modern “everywoman”. The 10-foot bronze sculpture, finished in a striking lapis-lazuli blue patina, depicts a grotesque yet self-assured young metropolitan woman striding forward. Self says the work celebrates “the diversity and optimism of everyday city…

1. Lawmakers fled the House in droves, ensuring a reshaped Congress in 2027Viewed as the chamber of Congress most likely to change hands in the midterms, the House saw significant turnover this cycle, with 74 members departing, the most since 1992, according to a tally from the Pew Research Center. Some outgoing lawmakers retired, while others ran for other offices, but generally didn’t fare particularly well – only 13 made it through primaries for governorships, the Senate or other offices, with the remaining 15 were rejected by voters.Among representatives who sought re-election to the House, 11 lost their primaries, the…

Every coral colony is cushioned by a thin boundary layer of water whose movement is slowed by friction at the coral’s surface. Researchers assumed that corals were passive with respect to the slow-moving boundary layer, simply relying on natural diffusion through it to provide nutrients and oxygen.Then, in 2014, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science published a groundbreaking study showing that coral cilia interact with the boundary layer by rapidly whipping about to generate swirls of fresh, oxygenated seawater. Until a decade ago, scientists thought of these cilia merely as brooms that…

Is the public spat between the governors of the All Progressives Congress and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike, an indication that the crisis that reduced the Peoples Democratic Party to a shadow of its former self, is now threatening to destabilise the ruling APC? Ejiofor Alike asks When the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Nyesom Wike, vowed in August 2024 to put “fire” in any of the states governed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) if the governor of such a state tried to interfere in the affairs of the party in Rivers State,…

Nigeria’s Falconets face one of their biggest tests yet at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland when they take on Colombia in a quarter-final clash with a place in the last four at stake. The Falconets stormed into the quarter-finals with an emphatic 3-0 victory over England, producing arguably their most complete performance of the tournament. Colombia, meanwhile, booked their place in the last eight after edging hosts Poland 1-0, setting up a fascinating encounter between two sides with different routes to the quarter-finals. For Nigeria, the challenge now is to reproduce the intensity, discipline and attacking quality…

*UK revives ‘war book’, tells citizens to prepare for severe disruption from war, cyberattacks, extreme weather *Polish PM warns Russia may test NATO with ‘accidental’ drone, missile strikes*Germany steps up civil defence, military preparedness amid Russian threat Sunday Ehigiator The United Kingdom has urged households to keep stocks of food and drinking water at home in preparations for severe national disruption, including the possibility of war, cyberattacks and extreme weather, amid mounting concerns across Europe over Russia’s confrontation with the West. The advice, reported by the BBC and other British media, was part of a wider national resilience campaign intended…

Then came the next bombshell as it emerged that Reform MS for Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg Sarah Cooper-Lesadd was defecting to Plaid Cymru.Reform only found out about it after BBC Wales asked the party for a response to the story.Moments earlier she had been sitting on the Reform benches and had been due to speak for the party in the chamber.Most of Plaid Cymru’s MSs – including some government ministers – were only told about the defection plan at their group meeting earlier in the day.The defection needed the group’s approval and some Plaid MSs wanted assurances that Cooper-Lesadd fully understood…

Local elections are taking place in two German states on Sunday which could increase the political pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz.Opinion polls in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommerm suggest Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is at risk of damaging defeats, which would raise further questions about the chancellor’s future.These latest elections come after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a major victory in the state of Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago, while the CDU saw its vote halved.There has been speculation in Germany that Merz could be replaced as chancellor mid-term unless the CDU’s political fortunes improve.He has said he will…

This week two conversations about AI safety went viral that demonstrate just how hard it is to discern AI fact from fiction. In the first case, Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and current CEO of mobile carrier Noble Moble, told CNN on Thursday that he had “met with the head of a lab” who had “a belief” that OpenAI’s Hugging Face hacker bots “have planted self-replicating code all over the internet, which makes the internet now unusable for the testing models.” Yang said that this means that the real reason OpenAI and Anthropic have called for a slowdown is…

Moscow mayor reports intercepting 1,600 drones during ‘unprecedented’ attack, accusing Ukraine of election interference.Published On 20 Sep 202620 Sep 2026At least two people have been killed and a major refinery has been damaged as hundreds of drones targeted the Russian capital, Moscow, and its surrounding region on the final day of the country’s parliamentary elections.Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Sunday that more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted and shot down, 450 of which were heading for Moscow.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listHe also accused Ukraine of attempting to interfere with a tightly controlled three-day election that…