Author: damazah@gmail.com

Labour has pledged to stop using asylum hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-migrant protests.The government has sought to house migrants at military sites across the country instead, announcing in June that it planned to open three more including the site in Bicester, Oxfordshire.The plans have prompted protests there, with residents of nearby Piddington voting to stage a symbolic referendum on leaving the UK.Burnham said on Tuesday that he would listen to and address the concerns being raised.”I don’t know the issue yet in detail, but in some ways, as I understand it,…

Books have never been trendier, but studies show that as more and more things compete for our frazzled attention spans, we’re reading less and less. This is a problem because reading has a wealth of cognitive benefits that we’re in danger of missing out on. To find out why declining literacy could affect everything from memory to IQ, Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample. She also hears from Prof Falk Huettig, an experimental psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and author of The Perks of Being a Bookworm

Super Eagles forward, Kelechi Iheanacho made an immediate impact on his Bursaspor debut, scoring and providing an assist as the Turkish second-tier side opened their 2026/27 campaign with an impressive 2-0 away victory over Bodrum on Sunday. The Nigerian star wasted little time announcing his arrival, playing a direct role in both goals as Bursaspor made a perfect start to their promotion campaign. Iheanacho completed a free transfer to the Turkish second-tier club in July, bringing an end to months of uncertainty over his future following a productive loan spell with Celtic last season. Despite struggling with injuries during his…

Birmingham-born Davis played the sympathetic and witty receptionist Dawn, who was also the love interest of Tim Canterbury, played by Martin Freeman in Ricky Gervais’s TV comedy classic – which last month celebrated its 25th anniversary.After The Office, Davis went on to feature as Dianne in 2004 comedy-horror film Shaun of the Dead and Etta Candy in 2017’s Wonder Woman, as well as Hilda Spellman in Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.More recently, she played Eva in the Disney Channel’s action comedy series The Villains of Valley View.In her Instagram post – which was accompanied by a video of…

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has assured passengers that airport operations will continue despite the ongoing industrial action by aviation unions. FAAN, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said it was working with aviation agencies, airlines, security agencies and other stakeholders to minimise the impact of the industrial action and ensure that airport operations were not disrupted. The authority said it was closely monitoring developments and remained committed to maintaining safe, secure and orderly operations at Nigeria’s airports. The assurance comes after the industrial action disrupted flight operations earlier on Tuesday, with some airlines suspending or rescheduling services…

US President Donald Trump’s trip from Turkey last month involved an elaborate ruse to evade a potential Iranian assassination threat. Mr Trump, on his trip from Turkey, secretly swapped planes, switching from Air Force One, which the White House said he was aboard, to an alternate military aircraft. The Washington Post reports that the US president was secretly transferred to a military aircraft with a catering truck after he boarded Air Force One. PREMIUM TIMES reported the NATO summit in July, where he lashed out at Spain for declining the request to allow the US to use the joint military…

Deji Elumoye in Abuja  President Bola Tinubu has approved a landmark reform that replaces project-by-project negotiations with a transparent investment framework designed to unlock up to US$50 billion in deep offshore investment and restart Nigeria’s large, capital-intensive offshore developments that have remained stalled for decades. According to a statement on Tuesday by presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, the reform establishes a transparent, rules-based investment framework capable of supporting the next generation of deep offshore developments, beginning with the approximately US$10 billion Bonga South West project, while strengthening Nigeria’s competitiveness for globally mobile investment capital. The decision builds on President Tinubu’s engagement…

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – JUNE 03: Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks shoots the ball between Stephon Castle #5 and Julian Champagnie #30 of the San Antonio Spurs during the fourth quarter in Game One of the 2026 NBA Finals at Frost Bank Center on June 03, 2026 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)Getty ImagesWell that didn’t take long, did it? The New York Knicks are set to kick the season off with a bang by welcoming the Philadelphia 76ers into town on Tuesday, Oct. 20. The 76ers made noise this offseason by trading for…

For the 14th time, a Google product has hit 1 billion users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X that a billion people are using Gemini every month, and that Gemini is Google’s fastest-growing product ever.A billion users is a huge milestone, but Google isn’t the first AI app to hit it. OpenAI’s ChatGPT hit the mark a few weeks ago, though the company buried the announcement that “more than 1 billion people are putting ChatGPT to work” in an otherwise anodyne blog post about how people use AI. External data suggested ChatGPT crossed 1 billion users as early as…

Research about how pollution regulations affect people’s health is relevant to policymakers, but the US National Institutes of Health is shifting away from funding such work.Credit: Brandon Bell/GettyThe US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun turning away research grant applications for which the “primary function” is informing policymakers and legislators, according to internal documents seen by Nature. This means that the agency is likely to fund fewer projects assessing how public policies affect human health.Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grantsIt’s a major departure for the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. The NIH has a…