Author: damazah@gmail.com

Folarin Balogun’s red card reprieve appeared to hinder rather than help his country as an out-of-sorts USA side were thrashed 4-1 by Belgium to end the co-hosts’ World Cup dreams.The PR circus following FIFA’s decision to suspend his red card and Donald Trump’s involvement in the supposedly independent process appeared to only galvanise the Americans’ opponents and overwhelm themselves as Belgium left their hosts sleepless in Seattle to set up a quarter-final tie with Spain. The Europeans were particularly dominant before half-time and could have been ahead inside a minute when Timothy Castagne forced Matt Freese into a full-stretch save,…

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The Abbey Road Institute, a professional music production school attached to the legendary London studio, is set to open a new Los Angeles campus later this year.  The new outpost will be headed up by Rafa Sardina, the celebrated, Grammy-winning producer and engineer, who’s worked with D’Angelo, Lady Gaga, Plácido Domingo, Alejandro Sanz, Elvis Costello, Rosalía, Stevie Wonder, and many more. The L.A. campus of the Abbey Road Institute will open Oct. 26 and will be located within Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.  While Sunset Gower Studios is primarily known as one of Hollywood’s most storied film production lots, it…

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The inclusion of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an agency the presidency claimed did not exist, in the 2026 Appropriation Act, has questioned the integrity of Nigeria’s annual budgets and has also shown that the level of corruption in the country has gone beyond the era of ghost workers syndrome to an era of “ghost” government agency, Ejiofor Alike reports Nigerians recently witnessed another drama, which further portrayed the country as unserious, with the discovery of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), a non-existent federal government agency in the 2026 Appropriation Act. The supposedly non-existent agency had operated from a…

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The Education Ministry on Monday published, for the first time, an official director-general’s circular establishing a nationwide policy on the laying of tefillin (phylacteries) in state schools.The directive, formulated following a comprehensive professional review, is intended to replace the varying interpretations adopted by individual school principals, which in recent years have led to disputes and misunderstandings with students and parents.Under the new guidelines, principals of state schools will be required to allow students who wish to do so to lay tefillin on school grounds.To this end, each school is required to establish a clear internal policy to be incorporated into…

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For Belgium, Monday’s 4-1 victory over the United States was doubly sweet. They advanced to the World Cup quarter-finals, as well as overcoming what they saw as injustice off the field.The buildup to the match had been tinged with controversy after Fifa had suspended the red card US striker Folarin Balogun was given in the last 32 against Bosnia and Herzegovina. That meant Balogun was free to play against Belgium instead of serving a one-match ban. When it emerged that Donald Trump had lobbied for Balogun’s red card to be overturned, Belgium – and other nations – were outraged: Uefa…

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Cristiano Ronaldo’s FIFA World Cup career came to a heartbreaking end as Spain edged Portugal 1-0 in the Round of 16, with substitute Mikel Merino scoring a dramatic stoppage-time winner to send the European champions into the quarter-finals. Merino struck deep into added time in Dallas to settle a tense Iberian derby, ending Portugal’s hopes and bringing the curtain down on Ronaldo’s World Cup journey after five tournament appearances. Read Also: Trump’s Balogun intervention sparks UEFA, Blatter backlash against FIFA The Portugal captain, who made his World Cup debut in 2006, had announced before the match that the 2026 edition…

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During this year’s World Cup, one scene repeats itself game after game: Several players take the field with holes in the calves of their socks. Social media is rife with theories about the supposed competitive advantage this might give them. But the practice isn’t new. It has been seen at the European Championships, the Olympic Games, and other international competitions over the past decade. Still, science has yet to find evidence that it improves performance.Professional soccer socks are, by design, form-fitting. In addition to holding shin guards in place, they provide support to the ankle, the arch of the foot,…

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Air pollution appears to alter how sperm genes function, one of the largest fertility studies of its kind has found.Men exposed to common air pollutants while sperm were developing showed subtle DNA changes that affected whether genes were switched on or off, raising fresh concerns air pollution may harm male fertility.The findings, presented on Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in London, identified ozone and nitrogen dioxide as the pollutants most strongly linked to these so-called epigenetic changes.Dr Carrie Nobles, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the work,…

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SEATTLE – Lumen Field was full, but no one was singing. Likewise, the U.S. men’s national team took to the pitch on Monday but ultimately did not turn up. There were few signs of trouble on the road to their 4-1 defeat to Belgium in the round of 16, a batch of impactful and important wins ensuring the vibes were as high as they could be. Not only did they, controversially, have their best goalscorer available to them, but country singer Lainey Wilson was sending them good luck messages after finding out head coach Mauricio Pochettino was a big fan…

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