Author: Elizabeth Jenrola Oso

Six people have died and 40 are missing after a boat disaster off the Italian island of Lampedusa. The wreck occurred on Tuesday afternoon. A half-sunken dinghy was spotted by Italian police patrols close to the islet of Lampione. The Italian coastguard rescued 10 people. The search for survivors resumed early on Wednesday morning. According to reports in the Italian press, survivors told rescuers there were about 56 people on the vessel, which had left from Sfax in Tunisia and got into difficulty owing to bad weather. They said many had fallen into the sea. The bodies of six people…

An outbreak of a strange disease at Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero, have reportedly left at least six students dead, with several others currently hospitalised. Some students of the university, who spoke on the condition of anonymity since the institution has not made an official statement, revealed that four students mysteriously died last week, while another passed away on Sunday after falling sick overnight. The students expressed frustration over what they described as the authorities’ inaction. “The situation is getting worse, yet the school management has not taken any decisive action to protect us,” a student said.…

Google has agreed to pay $28 million (£21.5m) to settle a lawsuit that claimed white and Asian employees were given better pay and career opportunities than workers from other ethnic backgrounds, a law firm representing claimants said Wednesday. The technology giant confirmed it had “reached a resolution” but rejected the allegations made against it. The case filed in 2021 by former Google employee, Ana Cantu, said workers from Hispanic, Latino, Native American and other backgrounds started on lower salaries and job levels than their white and Asian counterparts. The settlement has been given preliminary approval by Judge Charles Adams of…

A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace. The artwork — dubbed “America” — was one of the star attractions of an exhibition by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan at the 18th-century stately home, the birthplace of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. Thieves smashed their way in and ripped out the functional toilet, hours after a glamorous launch party at the Oxfordshire stately home in September 2019. Michael Jones was found guilty of planning the burglary. Fred Doe was convicted of conspiring to sell the gold, while Bora Guccuk…

Two NASA astronauts stuck onboard the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024 finally arrived back on Earth on Tuesday evening, more than nine months after the failure of Boeing’s pioneering Starliner capsule scuppered their originally scheduled week-long mission. A SpaceX Dragon capsule containing four astronauts, including Starliner’s test pilots Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Tallahassee, at 5.57pm ET (9.57pm GMT) after a 17-hour descent. The spacecraft slowed from 17,000mph (27,359 km/h) as it entered Earth’s atmosphere and emerged into a clear blue Florida sky before coasting under…

In a distressing piece of news, Boko Haram-backed Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, has released a video showing the execution of three Nigerian soldiers. According to SaharaReporters, in part of the video, the defenceless and hooded soldiers were shot in the head by the Boko Haram-backed insurgents. Reports have it that the incident occurred on March 15th, 2025 in Yobe State, North East Nigeria. The soldiers were said to have been captured in Kamuya and Azare area of the state. The video showed the three men kneeling in a field and…

United States President, Donald Trump has released materials related to the 1963 assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, seeking to honour his campaign promise to provide more transparency about the shock event in Texas. An initial tranche of electronic copies of papers flooded into the National Archives website on Tuesday evening with a total of more than 80,000 expected to be published after Justice Department lawyers spent hours scouring them. The digital documents, including PDFs of previously classified memos, offers a window into the climate of fear at the time surrounding U.S. relations with the Soviet Union shortly after…

US President Donald Trump has warned that American troops “could be” drawn into the conflict if Russia’s war on Ukraine escalates into “World War III.” The 78-year-old president made the remarks on Fox News on Tuesday, hours after a nearly two-hour phone conversation with Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Trump, in a chat with Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle, admitted that “Russia has the advantage” in the war and said, “We want to get it over with.” The president described his call with Putin as “great” and said he had pushed for a 30-day ceasefire, though the Russian leader only…

President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday exercised his constitutional power by declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State. The president also suspended Governor Siminalaye Fubara, his deputy, Ngozi Odu, and members of the House of Assembly, appointing Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (retd) to oversee the affairs of the oil-rich state. The decision is as a result of lingering political turmoil in the state which has led to the destruction of national assets. The declaration of a state of emergency is one of the most extraordinary powers granted to the Nigerian president under the 1999 Constitution (as amended). It is designed…

More than 150 Nigerian women and children were deported by Libyan authorities on Tuesday under a UN-affiliated “voluntary return” scheme for irregular migrants, an immigration official and UN sources said. Libya is a key departure point on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast for migrants, mainly from other parts of Africa, risking dangerous sea voyages in the hope of reaching Europe. Speaking to AFP, Mohamad Baredaa of Libya’s migration agency said the migrants deported on Tuesday were all Nigerian “women accompanied by children.” Sources at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN agency involved in the repatriation scheme, said the group…