The Nigerian Communications Commission has set $0.10 as the new fixed International Termination Rate for voice services paid by overseas telecom carriers for ending international calls on local networks in Nigeria.
The ITR pertains to the cost of bringing call traffic into Nigeria, and it was increased from the $0.045 initially presented in December last year as a floor price.
The Commission said the new rate, which would take effect September 1, 2022, was the fixed rate for ITR services.It added that international operators were mandated to pay local operations in dollars.
This is according to a document on the Determination of Mobile (Voice) International Termination Rate (As Amended) as of August 25, 2022, which is available on the NCC website.On the reason for backtracking on the floor price to a fixed price, the NCC noted,
“While the Determination had set a floor price at $0.045 and gives the MNOs room to negotiate on commercial terms with carriers, there were related indications that MNOs took advantage of this latitude to engage in discriminatory pricing that favours their related international carrier partners to the detriment of the Nigerian transit/IDA operators.
“To check the incidence of such anticompetitive disposition, it was agreed by all parties at the meetings that a fixed rate should be adopted by the Commission, in place of the floor rate which had provided a platform for negotiations with various carriers at a rate above the floor.
“It was further agreed that the present Determination should be amended to include this new fixed rate.”
France’s top administrative court on Tuesday gave the green light for the expulsion to Morocco of an imam accused of hate speech, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
Hassan Iquioussen “will be expelled from the national territory” in “a great victory for the republic,” the minister wrote on Twitter, citing a decision of the Council of State.
The case landed before the highest court after Paris judges blocked the imam’s deportation, which the interior ministry ordered in late July over “especially virulent anti-Semitic speech” and sermons calling for women’s “submission” to men.Iquioussen, 58, reaches tens of thousands of subscribers via YouTube and Facebook accounts from his home in northern France.He was born in France but holds Moroccan citizenship.
His lawyers successfully applied to the Paris court for a block on the order, saying it would create “disproportionate harm” to his “private and family life”.
An interior ministry lawyer last week told the Council of State Iquioussen “has for years spread insidious ideas that are nothing less than incitement to hatred, to discrimination and to violence”.
But the preacher’s lawyer retorted that some of the remarks including anti-Semitic or misogynistic speech dated back more than 20 years, pointing out that he had never been prosecuted for his public statements.
“Yes, Mr Iquioussen is a conservative. He has made retrograde statements on women’s place in society,” Lucie Simon said.“But that does not constitute a serious threat to public order.”
The interior ministry representative retorted that the imam’s words “create fertile ground for separatism and even terrorism,” insisting that he “remains an anti-Semite”.
Darmanin had warned that he would try to change the law if judges found Iquioussen could not be expelled.
American influencer and Only Fans model, Courtney Clenney, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her late Nigerian boyfriend, Christian Tobechukwu Obumseli.
Clenney, who is professionally known as Courtney Tailor, was arrested on August 10 as a suspect in Obumseli’s murder which occurred earlier in the year.
It was reported last week that policemen responded to calls at the couple’s Miami apartment on April 3, where Tobechukwu was found bleeding. Clenney was also found covered in blood at the scene.
Miami Fire Rescue personnel took him to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where a doctor pronounced him dead.
According to court documents obtained by E! News, the model pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon via a written plea dated August 18.
She is also to be arraigned on the 31st of August.Clenney’s attorney, Frank Prieto, stated after her arrest that the move by the police was shocking because of “clear evidence of self-defense in this matter.”
A Wisconsin morning news anchor died on Saturday, August 27, at age 27 in an apparent suicide.
News of WAOW anchor Neena Pacholke, who grew up in Tampa and played basketball for the University of South Florida, was engaged to be married at the time of her death, her older sister Kaitlynn Pacholke told Tampa Bay Times. Her sudden death left her family and colleagues stunned and many are mourning her online.
“Neena Pacholke, our beloved morning anchor passed away suddenly Saturday,” 9 WAOW said in a statement.
“The entire team here at News 9 are absolutely devastated by the loss as we know so many others are as well.”
“She was just like a little ball of sunshine, and her smile was massive,” Kaitlynn Pacholke said on Monday, August 29. “My sister was by far the happiest person I thought I knew.”
One of Pacholke’s last posts on Twitter was a retweet from author Jon Gordon about positivity and believing the best is yet to come. The tweet reads:
“We are not positive because life is easy. We are positive because life can be hard. Give yourself (and others) grace. Speak life and encourage others. Look for the good today. Remember your WHY. Believe the best is yet to come.”
“She was a kind person with a big heart and a contagious smile and we will miss her greatly,” the station said.
Her co-anchor Brendan Mackey said Pacholke was “the brightest light in the room” with the “biggest smile and the funniest laugh.”
Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle has disclosed that she hated having to share family photos with the British media outlets whose readers called her children ”the N-word.”
Speaking in a wide-ranging The Cut cover story published on Monday August 29, Meghan disclosed she was expected to give pictures of her now-3-year-old son, Archie, to the Royal Rota, the press pool that covers Queen Elizabeth II and her line of succession, however she did not. She said;
“There’s literally a structure. “Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?“You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”
Markle noted that she and Prince Harry did not have control of the @KensingtonRoyal Instagram account they initially shared with Prince William and Kate Middleton.
When the couple broke off to make their own social media handle, @sussexroyal, they chose not to play the “exchange game.”
Instead, Markle and the prince, 37, posted photos without first giving them to the Royal Rota.
The pair shut down their account when they stepped back from their royal roles, which they officially quit in February 2021, but Markle teased her upcoming Instagram return in the interview with the New York magazine offshoot.
The “Deal or No Deal” alum, who is also the mother of 1-year-old daughter Lilibet, has previously addressed the racist media coverage that drove her and her husband from the royal family and off of social media.
The bullying was “almost unsurvivable,” Markle told Oprah Winfrey in her bombshell CBS interview last year, revealing that she experienced suicidal thoughts.
A Nigerian man and his Indian wife have been arrested in Delhi for allegedly duping a government employee out of Rs 30 lakh (N15,838m) through honey-trapping.
The accused identified as Emmanuel Nnamani and his wife, T. Suchim Tikhir, a native of Nagaland, were arrested from Delhi’s Maidangari area by Cyber Crime & Economic Offence Police of Balasore on Saturday, August 27, 2022.
Earlier this month, another Nigerian national, Samson Emeke Alika, was arrested in connection with the case. The complainant alleged that he came in contact with a woman who claimed to be from United Kingdom (UK) through Facebook and they had chatted through Whatsapp.
The woman allegedly informed the complainant of having sent a gift of huge value containing gold biscuits, a Rolex watch, and an I-phone.
Later the complainant received a call over the phone, the caller identifying himself as a Customs Officer informed that a gift of high value in his name has arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) from London for which he has to pay Customs charges to receive the gift.
The complainant kept depositing Rs 2 lakh, Rs 3 lakh, and Rs 4 lakh at different instances to the tune of around Rs 30 lakh. Then the complainant realized that he has been duped and lodged a complaint at the Balasore Cyber Police Station.
Following the investigation, Balasore Cyber Police arrested Alika from New Delhi earlier this. His passport had expired in 2018 and another passport in his possession appeared to be a forged one.
Amresh Kumar Panigrahi, additional SP, Balasore, said they have seized two laptops, one Hyundai i20 car, one Dangal, two invalid passports, one SBI passbook, two gold chains and seven mobile phones from the couple’s possession.
The three persons worked as a team to cheat the victim from Balasore district. Further investigation into the case is on, to nab other people involved, Panigrahi added.
A woman who claims that a Premier League footballer raped her yesterday admitted she felt ‘pressured’ by police to press charges.
She said she had not initially considered her encounter with Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy, 28, to be rape and told officers she didn’t want to get involved in the case.
The woman, aged 22, is one of three who claim the French international raped them at a two-day pool party at his £4.8million mansion in Prestbury, Cheshire, last summer.
Testifying from behind a screen, she told Chester Crown Court that she was contacted by officers five months later and felt like she was ‘being dragged into the situation’ and it was the police who first called what happened to her ‘rape’.
The footballer allegedly forced himself on her during a ’20-second’ attack, which left her feeling ‘dirty and ashamed’.
She told the court: ‘I felt the word rape meant like a stranger or in an alleyway. But he was my friend and it was his house.’
She added: ‘It was not any different to what I had experienced before. I felt there was pressure on me but boys can be quite pressuring.’
She accepted that before giving her police interview she had Googled: ‘How much is Benjamin Mendy worth?’ and that she kept in touch with him on social media following the alleged rape.
She also agreed that there was a group of people, including some of the alleged victims, known as ‘the Manchester circle’ in the city’s clubs. She claimed that after Mendy’s arrest, his co-accused and alleged ‘fixer’, Louis Saha Matturie, 41, messaged her: ‘Ben’s done a lot of crazy stuff.’ Mendy denies eight counts of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault.
Saha, of Eccles, Greater Manchester, denies eight rapes and four sex assaults.
Lucky Irabor, the Chief of Defence Staff has said that 137 out of about 261 borders in the north-east and north-west regions of the country are unguarded.
Delivering a lecture on “security, defence & development in Nigeria” at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos on Thursday August 25, Irabor noted that porous nature of the borders has made it easily accessible for terrorists and bandits to enter the country to commit mayhem.
He said;
“Our borders are largely unmanned. The penetrability of our vast unmanned land areas – the north-east and north-west zones, particularly Borno, Yobe, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina states – with neigbouring countries such as Niger Republic and Chad among others has continued to be a key source of criminality and violent crimes in those parts of the country.
“The porous nature of the borders has made it easily accessible for terrorists and bandits to enter the country to commit mayhem. For instance, there are about 364 approved international border points in Nigeria with about 261 in the north-east and north-west regions.
Out of this 261 only 124 are manned leaving the remaining 137 unmanned by security agencies. Intelligence suggests that violence actors are using some of these normal border points to move freely from countries into Nigeria to cause mayhem.”
Irabor who advocated for use of technology as a tool in strengthening the Nigerian borders, erection of physical structures and an effective management, added that there is a need to have a broad based integrated border management system to be established.
He said;
“So I am looking ahead, when we bring technology to bear in the management of our borders, in addition of course, to physical, structures that need to be established across the length of our borders, then we cam contribute to the overall security of our land.“We move to correct this but the point remains that a good number of borders remain unmanned.”
PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and Governor Nyesom Wike met in London last night, Thursday August 25.
Both men have been at loggerheads after Gov Wike lost out in the May 28/29 Presidential primary of the party and also lost out in becoming the Vice Presidential candidate of the party. Efforts to resolve their issues had failed until recently.
PDP social media handles shared the photos of their meeting with some other PDP governors and stakeholders with the caption “A United Family, Stronger Together”
The meeting was held a few hours after former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, met Gov Wike and some other PDP governors and stakeholders.
American Heavyweight boxer, Deontay Wilder has claimed that Anthony Joshua lost his rematch to Oleksandr Usyk due to a lack of confidence.
Wilder, who is set for a ring return on October 15 against Finland’s Robert Helenius, believes Joshua showed a lack of confidence in the build-up to the fight and has questioned the 32-year-old’s mentality.
“Sometimes you just look at both fighters, and sometimes the eye test will tell it all,” Wilder told ESNews.
“The body language is telling a story, the way the momentum of a fighter is telling a story, you could look at Usyk and tell how confident he was, how the tables have turned, you could tell he owned it, he feels like who he is.
“With Joshua, you could tell that he wasn’t himself, his usual self of being motivated and secure within himself.”
Wilder also claimed he received an offer from Eddie Hearn before Joshua’s fight with Usyk, adding that it was a sign the promoter did not have full confidence in Joshua’s ability to reclaim the heavyweight titles.
“Eddie Hearn came to us, after everything is over with my fight, talking about offering a deal,” said Wilder.
“My thing is we’re busy. For me, it’s easy to see what was going on. Boxing’s solely a business, it’s not a sport. It’s strictly a business.
“But he was trying to contact us for reassurance.
All of a sudden you want to make a fight because even you don’t have confidence in your own fighter that he was going to win.
“For me, he was trying to make a deal to ensure he can lock something in but the thing about it is when you lose that price goes up. He ain’t going to get no solid deal locked in. We’re not stupid, when you’re
Mack Rutherford, a 17 year old teenager has become the become the youngest person to fly solo around the world in a small aircraft. Mack Rutherford landed at Sofia in Bulgaria, after a five-month journey across 52 countries.
The trip took him through Europe, Asia, Africa, the US, across two oceans, with his plane touching down in the UK at Wick in Scotland and departing from London’s Biggin Hill Airport earlier this week. Along the way, Mack, who is British-Belgian, encountered sandstorms in Sudan and spent the night on an uninhabited Pacific island.
After completing the feat on Wednesday, August 24, Mack encouraged others to “follow your dreams, no matter how old you are”.”Work hard and move forward to achieve your goals”, he added.
The previous record holder for flying solo was British pilot Travis Ludlow, who was 18 years when he completed his journey last year.
Mark’s elder sister Zara is the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
She completed her own journey in January this year and disclosed that she had “given him advice on the route” and she travelled to greet Mack as he returned to the starting point of his trip.Mack, comes from a family of aviators.
He set off from the Bulgarian capital on 23 March, experiencing extreme heat in Dubai and unexpected airport closures in India.
Mark also said he had slept in a shed beside a runway on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean after a “hairy moment” passing through through rain and low cloud.
In an earlier interview with CNN while he was part of the way through his journey, Mack described some of the beautiful places he was able to fly past, from wildlife in national parks in Kenya to the New York City skyline.
He added always having “something I can look at” helped him maintain focus in the low-altitude flights – which took up to 11 hours at a time.Asked what his plans for the future were, Mack said:
“I’m going to keep flying. I’m thinking of something like the air force, but I’m nowhere 100% sure on anything.”After I finish this I’ve just got to focus on school and try and catch up as much as I can.”
With the feat he has now broken two Guinness World Records – becoming the youngest person to fly around the world solo, as well as the youngest to circumnavigate the globe in a microlight plane.
The teenager flew a Shark – a high-performance ultralight aircraft which can hit a cruising speed of around 186mph (300km/h).
His sister Zara said that she was “constantly” trying to keep in touch and assist her brother while he was in the air.
“Our parents called him every day, and I joined in those conversations. “I gave him advice on the route, on the flight, so that I could be useful to him.”
Mack has previously said he wanted to be a pilot since the age of three and he achieved the feat in September 2020 when he qualified for his licence aged 15.
His father Sam Rutherford is a professional ferry pilot, while his mother Beatrice is a private pilot.
The Phnom Penh Appeal Court has upheld the life sentence given by the municipal court to two Nigerian men, a Filipina and Cambodian woman, in connection with smuggling of more than 2.5 kilogrammes of cocaine from Brazil to Cambodia in 2014.
Presiding Judge Ky Rithy said, “After having a clear consideration in this case, the Judges’ Council of the Phnom Penh Appeal Court has found that the sentences given by the Phnom Penh Appeal Court is appropriate and fit for their offence.”
The four convicts have the rights to appeal against the judgement to the Supreme Court within a month.
Judge Ky Rithy named the four as 49-year-old former nurse from Philippines Macoy Mavill Villamor; Nigerian cloth vendors Emmanuel Thankgod, male, 41; and Michael Sunshine, male, 39; and Cambodian Meng Sinuon, 38, a former waitress working with a French-owned-restaurant living in Chamkar Mon district’s Phsar Doeum Thkov commune.
Macoy was sentenced on September 16, 2014 by the Municipal Court with a life sentence while Sunshine got 30 years, Thankgod 27 years, and Meng Sinuon got 22 years in prison.
Besides, all the convicts were slapped with fine of $10,000 each. They were charged with ‘drug transport and trafficking’ under Article 40 of the Law on Drug Control.
Macoy was arrested on February 12, 2014 at the Phnom Penh International Airport in a joint operation by the police in the anti-drug department at the Ministry of Interior, the excise and customs police officers and immigration police.
Police seized a total of 2,513 grammes of cocaine powders from Macoy and her confession led to the arrest of Nigerians who arrived to receive the drug from her.
Nigeria is among five more African countries reportedly in ‘advanced talks’ with the UK government over a Rwanda-style deal.
The UK-Rwanda deal seeks to remove illegal immigrants from the UK for processing their asylum claims out of Europe.Now, Morocco, Nigeria, Namibia, Niger, and Ghana are all in discussions with the UK government about receiving migrants rejected for asylum from the UK, The Times reports.
This comes after 25 boats were intercepted by Border Force and the Royal Navy on Monday and escorted into Dover and Dungeness in the morning, before hundreds more people were brought ashore into the evening amid a large number of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK.
According to reports, as many as 1,000 people may have arrived yesterday, after three days without crossings.
August is set to become a record month for the year with around 6,000 migrants having crossed the Channel so far, The Telegraph reports.
The highest ever total in a month is 6,878 in November. And yesterday the yearly total reached 21,000. The total did not pass 20,000 until November in 2021.
It was also revealed that the Foreign Office has been taking up the task of establishing a list of countries interested in agreeing on a Rwanda-style deal.
An initial list of 20 countries was quickly reduced when ambassadors warned that seeking such agreements would damage relations.
Albania, North Macedonia, and Moldova were on the initial list but were removed following the negative media coverage.
A man had to get a steel cup removed from his rectum 10 days after it was inserted by his friends in a drunken prank.
The cup, which was around 3-4ins (8cm) in diameter and 6ins (15cm) long, was surgically removed at a local hospital.
The 45-year-old man, who hails from Balipadar, India, was enjoying a night out drinking with his friends in Gujarat, an Indian state where alcohol is illegal.
According to reports, the victim’s friends said they inserted the cup up his butt hole whilst he was in an “inebriated state” as part of a “prank”.
The man did not immediately report the incident over fears of embarrassing himself. His family members rushed him to hospital after they found out, said local media.
An X-Ray at MKCG Medical College and Hospital at Berhampur city showed that the cup was found stuck in the intestine.
NDTV India said they removed the cup after 10 days when the man’s stomach started swelling as he had not defecated since the incident.
At first, the doctors tried to retrieve the cup through the rectum, but then had to resort to surgery due to the sheer size of the object.
Doctors had to cut through the intestine to finally retrieve it. The procedure, which was carried out on Friday, August 19, took around 2.5 hours in total.
The man is recovering after the surgery and his condition is said to be stable. He will remain in hospital for another 4-5 days under observation.
Ryan Giggs’ defence team has said said the former Manchester United footballer’s ex-girlfriend is lying about being physically assaulted, claiming her anger with the footballer turned coach lies solely on his cheating and philandering ways, which aren’t crimes.Chris Daw QC claimed that Kate Greville had told so many lies and that the ‘source of her deep, deep anger’ was Giggs’ ‘infidelity’.
PR executive Kate Greville accuses Giggs, 48, of displaying controlling or coercive behaviour towards her and also headbutting her at his home, and elbowing her sister Emma Greville on the same occasion on November 1, 2020.
Giggs denies all charges and is standing trial at Manchester Crown Court.
His barrister Daw told jurors on the 11th day of the trial on Monday, August 22 that ‘morality plays no part in a court of law’.
He said Giggs is not on trial for ‘being flirtatious’, being a ‘compulsive womaniser’, an ‘adulterer’ or a ‘liar’ or a ‘cheat’.
“He is not on trial for any of those things,”. “If they were crimes, just think how many prisons we would need.
“He accused the prosecution of ‘cherry picking’ evidence from more than 19,000 messages the couple had exchanged during their near six year relationship.
Jurors heard Giggs accepted using ‘truly appalling’ language, including when he called Ms Greville a ‘c***. ”
But he said these were not representative of their relationship completely. Daw claimed a letter entitled ‘The Final Goodbye’, which Greville shared with a friend and didn’t send on to Mr Giggs, showed she was angry about his infidelity.”Truth be told, infidelity is what this case is all about,” Daw said.
“The reason Ms Greville was upset was because of that.”He said there was no reference to ‘control’ in the letter.
“Clearly that was the source of her deep, deep anger by the time we reach October (2020),” Mr Daw said.
He told the jury Greville had told lies ‘from the outset’, including when she claimed to police on the evening of November 1 that Mr Giggs had headbutted her before.
“Members of the jury, there are so many lies that she has told,” the QC said. “So many things she has said that can’t possibly be true.”
Daw told the jurors how Ms Greville told Giggs she needed to go to the hospital because she had ‘cancerous cells’, but that she was actually having her contraceptive coil removed so she could get pregnant for Giggs for financial reasons. “She denies that that was a plan at all,” Daw said.
“You have got to decide whether you can trust or believe what she says.” He added how Ms Greville can be ‘incredibly manipulative when she wants to be’. Daw said there was ‘no evidence of Giggs controlling anything she ever did’.”She was earning good money, she was independent,” he said. “She had her friends around her.”
“This is a woman who is extremely self confident and in control.” Daw described claims of an alleged assault in a Dubai hotel in 2017 as ‘absolutely ridiculous’. Greville alleges she was ‘dragged’ naked out of the room by Mr Giggs, while he says she was bruised during ‘rough s*x’.
He dismissed her claims of Greville being a ‘slave’ to Mr Giggs and her account of lockdown being a ‘living hell’ was ‘entirely subjective’ to present a ‘false’ picture.
Speaking of the alleged headbutt in November 2020 during an incident at Mr Giggs’ home in Worsley, Daw told jurors:
“We suggest to you that it is simply utterly incredible, that there is an attack with a headbutt in the way described.
“He argued a ‘minor’ injury to her lip was not consistent with a forceful headbutt alleged.
Daw said Mr Giggs had chosen to give evidence, and described prosecutor Peter Wright QC’s cross-examination of him as being ‘almost a form of bloodsport’.
“Whatever you made of him, you may think he was in effect a rabbit in the headlights in that witness box, faced by Mr Wright,” Daw said, describing Mr Wright as ‘one of the leading prosecution barristers of the last 40 years’.
He claimed Mr Giggs ‘pretty much agreed to anything’, and said the ex-footballer was ’embarrassed to admit’ if he didn’t understand a word, or what was being asked of him.
“It was no less a mismatch than putting Mr Wright in goal against Mr Giggs at his absolute peak of footballing ability,” Daw said.
The lawyer also made reference to the evidence of Sir Alex Ferguson, who told jurors that Giggs had ‘fantastic temperament’ when he managed him at United.
“You remember Sir Alex saying to you he used to deliberately pick on Ryan Giggs in front of the players because he knew he could,” Daw said.
“Can you imagine being picked on by Sir Alex Ferguson in his prime in front of lots of other people?”No reaction, no loss of temper.”Concluding his speech, the barrister added:
“Members of the jury, take a cold hard look at the evidence in this case, and putting everything out of your mind, the only true verdict I suggest on all three counts must be not guilty.”
The Judge, Hilary Manley will conclude all the evidence in the case on Tuesday, before the jury is sent out to deliberate on its verdicts.
After nearly four decades, Dr. Anthony Fauci says he’ll be departing his roles as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and as chief medical officer to US President Joe Biden at the end of this year.
Fauci known as the US’ top infectious disease expert has served at NIAID for 38 years starting in former President Ronald Reagan’s administration, a role in which he helped lead the US response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as well as West Nile virus, the anthrax attacks, pandemic influenza, various bird influenza threats, Ebola and Zika. He became a public figure during the United States’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
“I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as the position of Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden.
I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career,” Fauci, 81 said on Monday, August 22.
Fauci said in his statement that he is “not retiring” and will “continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.”
President Biden praised Fauci’s work in a statement.
“Because of Dr. Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved.
As he leaves his position in the U.S. Government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr. Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next,” Biden said.
“Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work.
I extend my deepest thanks for his public service. The United States of America is stronger, more resilient, and healthier because of him.”
Manchester City footballer, Benjamin Mendy has arrived at Chester Crown Court today for the second week of his rape trial.
The French footballer, 28, denies eight counts of rape against five women, one count of sexual assault, and one count of attempted rape.
The offences are alleged to have taken place on five different occasions at his Cheshire mansion between October 2018 and August last year.
Last week, one of his alleged victims said she was left feeling like she ‘didn’t want to be here anymore’ after allegedly being raped by Mendy.
Mendy’s co-defendant Louis Saha Matturie, 41, from Eccles, Salford, has also pleaded not guilty to eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault, relating to eight women.
Prosecutors allege Mendy, a French international, is a ‘predator’ who ‘turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game’.
None of the women involved can be identified and reporting restrictions apply ahead of the trial.
NBA hall of famer, Dennis Rodman has announced plans to visit Russia to seek the release of Brittney Griner, the WNBA star who was sentenced to nine years in prison on drug charges.
Earlier this month, Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian jail for drug possession earlier this month.
Her lawyers have filed an appeal and there are understood to be separate talks underway over a possible prisoner swap.
Rodman has now revealed plans to make a trip of his own to negotiate the Olympic champion’s release. “I got permission to go to Russia to help that girl,” Rodman told NBC News.
“I’m trying to go this week.” He did not specify who had given him permission to travel to Russia.
The 61-year-old Rodman has described himself as a “basketball ambassador.”
In 2014, he was invited to Russia by Vladimir Putin and called the country’s president “cool”.
He also has a friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is an avid NBA fan.
Conor McGregor has defended Anthony Joshua’s post-fight speech after the boxer went on a bizarre rant following his loss to Oleksandr Usyk in their rematch.
AJ was beaten on points for the second time in the space of a year by Ukraine’s Usyk in Saudi Arabia. After his split decision defeat in the highly anticipated rematch, Joshua grabbed the microphone before delivering a speech.
He spoke about his journey and the ongoing war on Ukraine after telling Usyk “I’m talking” when the champion tried to take his Ukrainian flag back from him, a bizarre speech that many have slammed. Joshua said:
“This guy is a phenomenal talent, we’re going to cheer for him three times. “How many belts you got now bro, five? Hooray. I was studying Ukraine and their champions from your amazing country.
“I’ve never been there, but at the same time, what’s happening there, I don’t know what’s happening. “It’s not nice, I’ve seen it in Lomachenko’s second fight. There were issues, civil war. Vitali Klitschko against Danny Williams, civil unrest.
“Usyk, as a champion, please raise your hand, under those circumstances you became a champion. Champ, champ.”
McGregor has now defended Joshua, claiming it was ‘a great speech’ and ‘if they [Usyk’s team] wanted the mic they could’ve tried get it back.’
‘You are all going on ridiculous over this,’ McGregor posted on his Twitter account. ‘That is a great speech right there. Fair play to him he made it yet he is still in there keeping that cog going.
‘If they wanted the mic they could’ve tried get it back. Then he gives me a shout out. Great fight, thank you! #champchamp’.
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