The company has not said why it was stopping all flights. Numerous passengers were posting on social media that their flights had been stuck on the runway at various airports and were now being sent back to the gate.

“An estimated timeframe has not been provided, but they’re trying to fix it in the shortest possible time,” the company said in a post on X, responding to a question from a stranded flyer.

Shares of the carrier were down 3.8% before the bell. A notice on the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration website merely said the company had requested a nationwide groundstop, without giving a reason.

As of 7:30 a.m. ET, American had not made a formal statement on social media, and was only responding to comments on X as numerous users posted there, as well as on Bluesky and Facebook.

“Hey, @AmericanAir just tell us whether we should go home or not. Please don’t make us wait in the airport for hours,” wrote one user.

American operates thousands of flights per day to more than 350 destinations in more than 60 countries.

The grounding comes months after airlines were hit by a global tech outage tied to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and a software issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

The U.S. FAA was not immediately available for further comment.

Two years ago, Southwest Airlines experienced a meltdown with its systems during the holidays that led to 16,900 flight cancellations and stranded 2 million passengers. It was eventually fined $140 million in the largest-ever civil penalty for a travel disruption.

“He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Angel Ureña wrote on X, formerly Twitter.‪

He said Clinton was admitted to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC on Monday evening for tests and observation after developing the fever.

Mr Ureña’s statement did not give more details on the Arkansas Democrat’s condition, though US media reports indicate Clinton is expected to recover.

A source close to Clinton told NBC News that the situation is “not urgent” and the former president would be “fine.” The news network reported Clinton was awake and alert.

This is the latest health scare for the 42nd US president, who served in the White House from 1993 to 2001.

Clinton, 78, was last admitted to the hospital for six days in 2021 in California after developing an infection in his blood. He is also known to have suffered with heart issues in the past.

In 2004, aged 58, he had a quadruple bypass surgery after doctors found signs of extensive heart disease and, ten years later, he had a clogged artery opened after complaining of chest pains.

Not long after his second surgery, the ex-president – known for his love of fatty foods – went vegan. He told Politico in 2016, “I might not be around if I hadn’t become a vegan. It’s great.”

Clinton was active on the presidential campaign trail this year, as he travelled the country to boost Vice-President Kamala Harris’s bid for president.

Last month, he released his latest book, Citizen: My Life After the White House.

The disease, mainly transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated with rodent urine or excrement, has infected 1,154 people in six Nigerian states.

Jide Idris, head of the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC), said the agency’s risk assessment has categorized it as high, prompting the activation of the emergency Operations Centre to manage the outbreak.

“While the disease occurs throughout the year, peak transmission typically happens between October and May, coinciding with the dry season when human exposure to rodents increases,” he said at a press briefing in Abuja.

The centre will ensure seamless coordination of the control and management of the outbreak.

Symptoms of the virus – which can also be passed between people through bodily fluids of those infected – include fever, headaches and, in the most severe cases, death.

The World Health Organization classifies Lassa fever as a priority disease due to its epidemic potential and lack of approved vaccines.

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The Oscar-winning actor, 69, was baptised and received a minister’s license at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in New York on Saturday in a service broadcast on Facebook.

“We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy, having received his minister’s license in the Church of God in Christ today, in a truly uplifting moment,” Archbishop Christopher Bryant wrote on Facebook, sharing a photo of Washington’s baptism.

In remarks at the end of the ceremony, Washington remembered how his mother told him, “about the eighth or ninth time I lost an Academy Award,” that “man gives the award, God gives the reward.”

He went on to recall that a woman named Ruth Green, who was “known to have the gift of prophecy,” predicted when he was 20 that he would “travel the world and preach to millions of people.”

“Fifty years later … if (God) can do this for me, there’s nothing he can’t do for you,” he said. “The sky literally is the limit, and there’s no limit to the sky. God is good all the time.”

After watching for about two hours, he said, “I think that’s Tango,” using a term for target. “Gray hoodie. Backpack. Walking quickly.”

The immigration officers surrounded and handcuffed a 23-year-old man from Ecuador who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.

Kenneth Genalo, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, said a popular misconception is that officers can sweep into a community and pick up a wide swath of people who are in the United States illegally and send them to their home countries.

“It’s called targeted enforcement,” Genalo said.

“We don’t grab people, but we take them to JFK and put them on a plane.”

With Donald Trump returning to the White House, there is intense interest in how the Republican will carry out his immigration agenda, including a campaign pledge of mass deportations.

His priorities could run into the realities faced by agents focused on enforcement and removals, including the unit in New York that offered The Associated Press a glimpse into its operations: The number of people already on its lists to target eclipses the number of officers available to do the work.

The Biden administration had narrowed deportation priorities to public safety threats and recent border crossers. Trump’s incoming “border czar,” Tom Homan, says officials in the new administration also will prioritize those who pose a risk, such as criminals, before moving on to immigrants whom courts have ordered removed from the U.S.

But Homan also has signaled that enforcement could be wider: “If you’re in the country illegally you got a problem,” he said recently on Dr. Phil’s Merit TV.

It’s a tall order.

Deportation orders far outnumber staff

About 1.4 million people have final orders of removal, while about 660,000 under immigration supervision either have been convicted of crimes or are facing charges.

However, only 6,000 officers within ICE are tasked with monitoring noncitizens in the country and then finding and removing those not eligible to stay.

Those staffing numbers have largely remained static as their caseload has roughly quadrupled over the past decade to 7.6 million.

About 10% of that workforce was pulled from their regular duties last year to go to the U.S.-Mexico border at times when immigration spiked.

Jason Houser, ICE chief of staff earlier in the Biden administration, said the number of officers needed to pursue those deemed a public safety threat are at direct odds with the goal of deporting people in large numbers.

“You’re not going to be able to do both of those with the resources you have, with the deportation officers you have,” Houser said. “Just the arithmetic, the time-intensive nature of those sort of arrests will overwhelm any ability to get to those large scale numbers.”

Genalo said the officers in charge of individual cases have to get a lead, ensure they have the legal authority to arrest someone and then track the person down. They generally aren’t allowed to enter a residence, so they want to catch people outside.

How immigration removals work in the field

On this recent operation, about a dozen officers gathered before 5 a.m. at a White Castle parking lot in the Bronx. After putting on their body armour and checking their equipment, they circled around for a briefing.

Besides the 23-year-old Ecuadorian man, they were going after a 36-year-old Mexican man convicted of forcibly touching a young girl and another Ecuadorian also convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.

The first target, the 23-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl, was believed to usually leave the apartment building around 7 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. Sometimes he was with a woman and child.

“Light came on in the first floor of the apartment,” an officer waiting outside said over the radio. Then later: “Someone came out of the basement, but it’s not our target.”

They finally spotted him, swept him into the back of a vehicle and quickly left the neighbourhood.

Inside, the man’s 22-year-old wife didn’t know what had happened until he called later from detention.

In an interview, she said they met in Ecuador and had a child — a bubbly 3-year-old girl with braids — and she was pregnant with their second. He worked construction while she was a manicurist.

She said she knew why her husband had been arrested but felt there were important mitigating factors. She said they knew it was possible her husband could be sent back to Ecuador after his criminal case wrapped up but that it was still a shock.

ICE deported more than 270,000 people over a recent 12-month period, the highest annual tally in a decade, the agency said in a recent report.

But it also said it made fewer arrests of noncitizens, in part because of the demand of sending staff to the border. Of those arrested, a greater proportion had serious criminal histories.

Working with local law enforcement

Some cities and states work with ICE to turn over people in their custody who aren’t U.S. citizens.

But many left-leaning states and cities have so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In New York City, for example, ICE used to have an office at the jail to easily take custody of noncitizens. In 2014, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation kicking out ICE and restricting police cooperation.

His successor, Eric Adams, has shown a willingness to revisit some of those policies. He recently met with Homan and told reporters they agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes.

Genalo said agents spend time and resources picking up immigrants few would argue should have the right to stay in America.

“How can you state that sanctuary policies help the community when you’re releasing all these criminals right back into the community?” he said. “We’re safer when we collaborate.”

Staffing is also an issue. He said he’s supposed to have about 325 officers, but the number has been about 30% lower in recent years.

Many immigration advocates have long-standing concerns about ICE’s tactics, and those concerns are deepening with Trump’s return to office in January.

Advocates say the incoming administration’s position of going after public safety threats is already a longtime policy.

They object to the rhetoric they say paints immigrants as people to be feared. They say there can be nuances in some cases: Maybe someone committed a crime a long time ago and has been rehabilitated, or someone facing a final order of removal moved and never got the notice.

During Trump’s first term, there were a lot of “collateral arrests” where immigration officers would detain others besides those being targeted, said Jehan Laner, a senior staff attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. That destabilizes communities, she said, adding, “We saw them go after everyone.”

Genalo said he couldn’t comment on the incoming administration’s plans but stressed that officers are going after specific targets with criminal histories.

He said he has a docket of about 58,000 people who either have criminal convictions or pending charges.

“I’m pretty sure we’re going to be tied up for a while dealing with the criminal population,” Genalo said.

A Nasa spacecraft is attempting to make history with the closest ever approach to the Sun.

The Parker Solar Probe is plunging into our star’s outer atmosphere, enduring brutal temperatures and extreme radiation.

It’s out of communication for several days during this burning hot fly-by and scientists will be waiting for a signal, expected on 27 December, to see if it has survived.

The hope is the probe could help us to better understand how the Sun works.

NASA

PA Media

NASA

Honda and Nissan plan to merge as the two Japanese firms seek to fight back against competition from the Chinese car industry.

Joining forces would create one of the world’s biggest car producers alongside Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford.

The potential multibillion dollar deal to combat “the rise of Chinese power” was a key driver behind the plan, said Honda’s chief executive Toshihiro Mibe.

Mr Mibe said a plan to “fight back” needs to be in place by 2030, or they risk being “beaten” by rivals.

A man has been charged with murder in connection with the death of a woman who was set on fire on a subway train in New York.

Sebastian Zapeta, 33, was charged with first and second degree murder as well as arson on Monday over the attack.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described Sunday’s incident as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being”.

She said the woman was on a stationary F train in Brooklyn when she was approached by a man who used a lighter to ignite her clothing – which became “fully engulfed in a matter of seconds”. Although officers extinguished the flames, the victim died at the scene.

Getty Images

Russian scientists have unveiled the remains of a 50,000-year-old baby mammoth found in thawing permafrost in the remote Yakutia region of Siberia during the summer.

They say “Yana” – who has been named after the river basin where she was discovered – is the world’s best-preserved mammoth carcass.

Weighing in at over 100kg (15st 10lb), and measuring 120cm (4ft) tall and 200cm long, Yana is estimated to have been only about one-year-old when she died.

Before this, there were only six similar discoveries in the world – five in Russia and one in Canada.

The three excluded from the measure include the Boston Marathon bomber and the man who killed Jewish worshippers in 2018.

In a statement, Biden said he was “more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level”. His measure does not include more than 2,000 people convicted to death by State authorities.

Biden’s decision comes before the return of President-elect Donald Trump in January, who resumed federal executions when he was in office.

Among those reprieved by Biden are nine people convicted of murdering fellow prisoners, four for murders committed during bank robberies and one who killed a prison guard.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden added.

Disgraced former New Orleans police officer Len Davis, who operated a drug ring involving other officers and arranged a woman’s murder, is among those who have been shown clemency.

The three remaining on death row include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof who shot and killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.

Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jewish worshippers during a mass shooting in 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, will also remain on death row.

Biden has campaigned as an opponent of the death penalty, and the Justice Department issued a moratorium on its use at the federal level after he became president.

During his first term in office, Trump oversaw 13 deaths by lethal injection during his final six months in power.

There had been no federal inmates put to death in the US since 2003 until Trump resumed federal executions in July 2020.

During his re-election campaign, Trump indicated he would expand the use of capital punishment to include human and drug traffickers, as well as migrants who kill American citizens.

Biden appeared to refer to Trump’s intentions in his statement by saying he could not “in good conscience – stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted”.

In US law, these clemency decisions cannot be reversed by a president’s successor.

Biden’s decision will not impact people sentenced to death in state courts, which is around around 2,250 inmates according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. More than 70 state executions have been carried out during Biden’s presidency.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states. Six other states, including Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, have moratoriums in place.

Earlier this month, Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned 39 more convicted of nonviolent crimes.

He also pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases. He had pleaded guilty to tax charges earlier in September and was found guilty of being an illegal drug user in possession of a gun in June – becoming the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime.

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

Source: BBC

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Recent Kenyan history is littered with stories of huge contracts that have resulted from corruption – and despite laws that are supposed to prevent this from happening, there are suspicions that it continues to take place.

Thirty-year-old Mr Amenya, who is studying in France for an MBA, leaked details on social media of what he said was a proposed agreement between Kenya and the Adani Group, an Indian multinational, in July.

It concerned the management of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) – the country’s – and region’s – biggest airport, which is long overdue for a complete overhaul.

“The first feeling I had [when I was passed the documents] was that it was just another government deal… I did not understand the magnitude or the seriousness of it,” Mr Amenya, whose profile as an anti-corruption activist had been on the rise, tells the BBC.

The documents detailed a $2bn (£1.6bn) proposal by the Adani Group to lease JKIA for 30 years in order to modernise and run it.

As he started to go through the papers, he felt that if it was to go ahead, it “was going to hurt the Kenyan economy” while all the benefit would go to the Indian multinational.

The deal appeared unfair to him, according to what he read, as Kenya would still be putting in the largest share of the money but not reaping the financial rewards.

Mr Amenya had good reason to think the papers were genuine as “the people who were giving me these documents were from very legitimate departments of government”, he says.

The Adani Group is involved in infrastructure, mining and energy projects globally, in countries such as Israel, the UAE, France, Tanzania, Australia and Greece. Its founder Gautam Adani is a big player in India’s economy and is a close ally of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Through further reading, Mr Amenya says he discovered that the Adani deal with Kenya could have left his country with an obligation to pay the company if it did not recoup its investment.

“This was a great breach of trust of the people by the leadership of the president, the Kenya Airports Authority, the minister – they all betrayed the people,” he alleges.

Despite the evidence in his hands, Mr Amenya wrestled with what to do next. His own safety was at risk, though being in France he was better off than being in Kenya, where anti-corruption activists have been targeted and some killed.

“I was a bit scared. I didn’t know what’s going to happen. I’m risking my career, I’m risking my life, why should I take the risk to do this?” he asked himself at the time.

However, in the end, he felt that staying quiet was not an option.

“You know, it’s only cowards who live long.”

After spending weeks going through what he had been sent, Mr Amenya leaked the documents on his X page in July, immediately sparking outrage in Kenya.

JKIA airport workers went on strike demanding that the deal be scrapped.

“It felt like a duty for me, for my country. Even if I am far away, I still have a duty to my country. I want to see a better Kenya, my home country becoming developed, industrialised and an end to corruption.”

He worried that the airport deal was a harbinger of what might come next.

Mr Amenya says it was not just the unusual terms and lack of transparency that rang alarm bells, it was also, he alleges, that Kenyan laws appeared to have been systematically ignored.

“[The authorities] never did due diligence for this company… they did not follow the due process of procurement.”

He alleges that some government officials hoped to bypass the legal requirements, including public consultation, that are supposed to prevent taxpayers’ money from being misspent.

A report in April by the Kenya Airports Authority on the proposed deal highlighted that there was no plan to consult stakeholders on the plan.

“This was in April, and by July when I was exposing this, they had not done any public participation. It was quite secret this deal, and by that time they were just a month away from signing the deal,” Mr Amenya alleges.

“After I exposed this deal is when they hurriedly tried to come and do like a sham public participation – they called the Kenya Airports Authority staff and started to have stakeholder meetings.”

Various officials and branches of the state denied allegations of corruption in the process and the authorities went ahead to sign another multimillion-dollar deal with the Adani Group – this time to construct power lines.

The Adani Group said Mr Amenya’s claims were baseless and malicious.

A spokesperson told the BBC that “the proposal was submitted following Kenyan Public Private Partnership regulations and was intended to create a world-class airport and significantly enhance the Kenyan economy by creating numerous new jobs”.

The Adani Group further says that no contract was signed as “discussions did not progress to a binding agreement”.

The company also says the proposal for the energy deal was above board and that the company “categorically refutes all allegations and insinuations of any violation of Kenyan laws in our operations or proposals.

“Every project we undertake is governed by a strong commitment to compliance, transparency and the laws of the respective countries in which we operate,” the statement read.

But it was not Mr Amenya’s leak that actually changed the government’s mind.

It was only when the US authorities indicted Gautam Adani for alleged involvement in a $250m (£200m) bribery scheme that Kenya acted.

Representatives from the Adani Group denied the allegations from US prosecutors and called them “baseless”.

At a state-of-the-nation address in parliament last month, Kenya’s President William Ruto announced the cancellation of both Adani deals.

“In the face of undisputed evidence or credible information on corruption, I will not hesitate to take decisive action,” Ruto said in a speech met with loud cheers inside parliament.

Kenyans celebrated the decision which Ruto attributed to new information provided by investigative agencies and partner nations.

“I was in class when this announcement came. I couldn’t believe it,” Mr Amenya says.

“I think in the first one hour, I had tears in my eyes. I was so happy.”

Although he does not see himself as a hero, messages of support poured in from everywhere, including from India.

Forty minutes after the class ended, he posted his now-famous tweet “Adios Adani!!” – goodbye Adani.

“It was momentous… All that I did finally paid off.”

The feeling of triumph, however, came after months of personal struggle and pressure.

Soon after exposing the airport deal, Mr Amenya was sued for defamation by an Adani Group representative and a Kenyan politician, making him question whether he should continue.

“Some people were coming to me from the government, they were even ready to pay me, they were telling me: ‘You need to cash out and just stop this fight with the government,'” he recalls.

“It would have been the biggest mistake of my life to give up, a betrayal to the Kenyan people.”

But even after scrapping the deals, President Ruto still questions why Kenyans opposed this and many other projects he has championed. He says he will find a way to upgrade the airport.

“I saw them saying that those who stopped the upgrading of our airport are heroes. Heroes? What do you gain when you stop the building of an airport in your country?” Ruto asked at a public function in early December.

“You have no clue how it’s going to be built, and those who are opposed have never even stepped foot inside an airport, you just want to oppose.”

Mr Amenya, who is still facing the defamation cases, is now fundraising to help with his legal fees, and says his future in Kenya is uncertain.

“I have received threats from credible intelligence agencies and people in Kenya that have warned me not to go back because obviously there’s some people who are very angry with what I did,” he says.

A hefty price, but one Mr Amenya says he would gladly pay again.

“We don’t really need to wait for someone to save us,” he says.

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It is the third case this week of people being crushed to death at events where free food was being distributed.

The fatalities in Okija occurred at a charity event on Saturday, when residents rushed to collect Christmas donations, including rice and vegetable oil.

On the same day, a similar tragedy at a Catholic Church in the capital city of Abuja killed 10 people, while 35 children died during a carnival event on Wednesday in the city of Ibadan.

Police have now warned organisers to notify authorities before holding charity events to prevent such loss of life.

Toyin Abdul Kadri, who witnessed the crush at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Abuja, told AFP news agency the attendees “forced the gates and forced their selves inside”.

The event involved “vulnerable and elderly individuals” and four children were killed, the police said.

In a social media post about the crushes, Amnesty International Nigeria wrote: “President Bola Tinubu’s government must urgently prioritise addressing widespread hunger, higher unemployment and the rapidly falling standard of living.”

Food and transportation costs have more than tripled in Nigeria in the last 18 months.

The global bout of inflation has been exacerbated by some of the policies of the government – designed to strengthen the economy in the long-term – such as ending a fuel subsidy.

In a statement on the deadly crushes, President Bola Tinubu said: “In a season of joy and celebration, we grieve with fellow citizens mourning the painful losses of their loved ones. Our prayers of divine comfort and healing are with them.”

He urged state governments and the police to enforce strict crowd control measures, and has cancelled all his official engagements in honour of the victims.

He also noted the similarities between the incidents, including one earlier this week in the south-west city of Ibadan.

A crush at a school funfair there killed 35 children and seriously injured six others.

Thousands of people had turned up on the promise of free food.

Residents in Bashorun, a suburb of Ibadan, told the BBC the crowd soon exceeded 5,000 with many attempting to force their way through the school gate. Parents are said to have tried to scale the fence surrounding the compound to gain access.

Police spokesperson Olumuyiwa Adejobi said the three “tragic” incidents highlight the “urgent need for a more structured and effective approach to delivering aid to vulnerable communities and members of the public in general”.

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Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the incident on Sunday as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being”.

She said the woman was on a stationary F train to Brooklyn when she was approached by a man who used a lighter to ignite her clothing.

The victim died at the scene, she said, adding that the suspect had been arrested following a tip-off from a group of high school students as he rode the subway later on Sunday.

Police said the woman, who has not been named, was in a subway carriage at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn at about 07:30 local time (12:30 GMT) when a man approached her.

There was no interaction before the attack, police said, adding that they did not believe the two people knew each other.

The man got off the train as police officers on patrol in the station rushed to the fire.

“Officers were on patrol on an upper level of that station, smelled and saw smoke and went to investigate,” Ms Tisch said.

“What they saw was a person standing inside the train car fully engulfed in flames.”

Police are still working to identify the victim and the motive for the attack.

“Unbeknownst to the officers who responded, the suspect had stayed on the scene and was seated on a bench on the platform just outside the train car,” Ms Tisch added.

She explained responding officers were able to get a “very clear, detailed” look at the man and images were disseminated by the New York Police Department (NYPD).

Later, three high school-aged New Yorkers called 911 to report they recognised the suspect on another train, Ms Tisch told reporters.

The man was then located after officers boarded the train and walked through the subway carriages.

He was arrested at Herald Square station – which is located in near to the Empire State Building in Manhattan.

The man was found with a lighter in his pocket, the police commissioner said.

“I want to thank the young people who called 911 to help,” Ms Tisch added.

“They saw something, they said something and they did something.”

The man, who was not publicly identified, emigrated from Guatemala to the US in 2018, the NYPD’s Joseph Gulotta said.

Gulotta explained detectives are still trying to establish whether the victim was asleep when she was set on fire.

“She’s definitely there, she’s motionless,” Mr Gulotta added.

“So to say if she’s asleep or not, we’re not 100% sure, but it appears that she’s motionless at that spot.

“There is no interaction between the two. And when the incident happens, there is no interaction between them.”

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Cyclone Chido has killed 94 people in Mozambique since it made landfall in the east African country last week, local authorities have said.

The country’s National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management (INGD) said 768 people were injured and more than 622,000 people affected by the natural disaster in some capacity.

Chido hit Mozambique on 15 December with winds of 260 km/h (160mph) and 250mm of rainfall in the first 24 hours.

The same cyclone had first wreaked havoc in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, before moving on to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Last Sunday, during a church service, Apostle Ekatso had a revelation in which he described seeing the entire country enveloped in darkness and others wailing.

Liberia’s Parliament building was gutted by fire on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, following an anti-government protest on Tuesday.

According to Apostle Ekatso, the West African country of Liberia could face some very turbulent times in coming days and prayers were needed to avert the situation.

“I saw the flag of Liberia down; the country was covered with Black, and the Vice President of Liberia became the President. Their Parliament House was covered black.

“In fact, I saw the people over there crying. Let’s pray for Liberia. I don’t want what happened to Ghana some time ago to happen there,” he said in last Sunday’s sermon.

@apostleekatso PROPHECY FOR LIBERIA I saw the flag of Liberia down, the country was covered with black and the Vice President of Liberia became the President. The seat of the president was covered with black. Infact I saw the people over there crying. Let’s Pray for Liberia. I don’t want what happened to Ghana sometime ago to happen there. #creatorsearchinsights ♬ original sound – Apostle Ekatso Ministry

Apostle Ekatso, also known as the “Spiritual Calculator,” has over the years made some prophecies that have seen light, with many commending him for his unique spiritual sight.

He previously called the Ghana presidential elections for John Dramani Mahama, which came to pass after he garnered over 56% of the vote cast.

More than 271,000 immigrants were deported from the US over the last fiscal year, according to a report released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on Thursday.

The ICE report comes just weeks before President-elect Trump, who plans to make mass deportation a cornerstone of his incoming administration, takes office.

President Joe Biden in 2021 had pledged to pause deportations, but his administration ended up expanding it following a surge in border crossings.

In the newly released report, ICE said the steep climb in deportations last fiscal year was partly the result of a streamlined process.

More deportations flights went to further away destinations, including Africa and Asia, which did not accept US deportations for years, the agency said.

A majority of the deportations in fiscal year 2024 involved migrants apprehended by border officials compared to those ICE arrested in the US interior.

Roughly 82% of the 271,000 immigrants deported that year were arrested by border agents.

President-elect Trump has vowed to launch the “largest deportation operation in history” when he returns to office on 20 January.

These promises, however, are likely to face enormous logistical and financial challenges.
Leading up to his decisive victory over Biden in November, Trump spent much of the time on the campaign trail attacking the White House’s border policies.

Trump transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Reuters that Biden’s deportations were insignificant compared to the high levels of illegal immigration during his presidency.

“On day one, President Trump will fix the immigration and national security nightmare that Joe Biden created by launching the largest mass deportation operation of illegal criminals in United States history,” she said.

The number of migrant encounters along the US-Mexico border reached a record high in December 2023, but have dropped significantly, particularly in the last few months, and are now at their lowest level since July 2020, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

It also attributed the rise in deportations to improved diplomatic efforts convincing countries to take back more deportees.

Mexican authorities have also increasingly been clamping down on the flow of migrants headed north to the US border.

In June, President Biden issued an executive order that sharply limited asylum, which along with Mexico’s help led to a decrease in illegal border crossings.

Since then, the number of individuals released by the US Border Patrol pending immigration court proceedings is down 70%, the agency said.

The Malaysian government says it has agreed in principle to resume the search for a passenger jet that vanished 10 years ago in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 while on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board.

Efforts to locate the wreckage of the Boeing 777 have sputtered over the years and hundreds of families of those on board remain haunted by the tragedy.

On Friday, Malaysia’s transport minister Anthony Loke said the cabinet approved in principle a $70m (£56m) deal with US-based marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity to find the aircraft.

Under a “no find, no fee” arrangement, Ocean Infinity will get paid only when the wreckage is found.

A 2018 search by Ocean Infinity under similar terms ended unsuccessfully after three months.

A multinational effort that cost $150m ended in 2017 after two years of scouring vast waters.

While the government has “in principle” accepted Ocean Infinity’s offer, Loke said negotiations over specific terms of the deal were still ongoing and would be finalised early next year.

The new search will cover a 15,000 sq km patch in the southern Indian Ocean, based on new data that Kuala Lumpur found to be “credible”, the minister said.

“We hope this time will be positive,” Loke said, adding that finding the wreckage would give closure to the families of those on board.

‘Best Christmas present ever’

Relatives of passengers on MH370 welcomed the Malaysian government’s approval of a new search.

“I am so happy for the news… Feels like the best Christmas present ever,” Jacquita Gonzales, the wife of MH370 inflight supervisor Patrick Gomes, told the New Straits Times.

“This announcement stirs mixed emotions – hope, gratitude, and sorrow. After nearly 11 years, the uncertainty and pain of not having answers have been incredibly difficult for us,” Intan Maizura Othaman also told the papers. Her husband, Mohd Hazrin Mohamed Hasnan, was a member of the cabin crew.

Jiang Hui, whose mother was on the plane, told Reuters news agency the Malaysian government must have a “more open approach” to the search to allow more players to take part.

In a statement, Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett said the Malaysian government’s decision was “great news”, adding: “We look forward to sharing further updates in the new year once we’ve finalised the details and the team gets ready to go.”

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of 8 March 2014. It lost communication with air traffic control less than an hour after take-off and radar showed that it deviated from its planned flight path.

Investigators generally agree that the plane crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean – though it is unclear as to why it happened.

Pieces of debris, believed to be from the plane, have washed up on shores of the Indian Ocean in the years after the disappearance.

A host of conspiracy theories have sprouted around the aircraft’s disappearance, from speculation that the pilot had deliberately brought down the plane to claims that it had been shot down by foreign military.

A 2018 investigation into the aircraft’s disappearance found that the plane’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but drew no conclusions about who had been behind it.

Investigators said at the time that “the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccans Resident Abroad confirmed the development in a statement.

The release followed the intervention of King Mohammed VI, whose mediation prompted Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré to grant the request favourably.

This act of diplomacy reflects the strong and long-standing ties between Morocco and Burkina Faso and the excellent personal relationship between King Mohammed VI and President Traoré.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his heartfelt gratitude to King Mohammed VI during a telephone conversation.

According to a statement from the Élysée Palace, President Macron warmly thanked the Moroccan monarch for his instrumental role in securing the freedom of the four French citizens after nearly a year in detention.

The Élysée emphasized that this mediation showcases the enduring partnership and mutual respect between Morocco and France.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighted the significance of the successful mediation, describing it as a humanitarian triumph rooted in Morocco’s diplomatic strength and the shared commitment to maintaining positive relations with Burkina Faso.

This event not only underscores King Mohammed VI’s dedication to peaceful resolutions but also reinforces Morocco’s position as a reliable mediator in regional and international matters.

Source: Reuters

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An American citizen has pleaded guilty to helping run what has been described as the first known secret police station in the US on behalf of the Chinese government.

Prosecutors say Chen Jinping and his co-defendent Lu Jianwang opened and operated the station in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood in early 2022 on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

At least 100 such stations have been reported worldwide across 53 countries, with rights groups accusing China of using the outposts to threaten and monitor Chinese nationals abroad.

But China has denied that they are police stations, saying they are “service stations” providing administrative services to nationals overseas.

The Pope writes that, after landing in Baghdad in March 2021, he was told an event at which he was set to appear was being targeted by two suicide bombers.

Both attackers were subsequently intercepted and killed, he said in excerpts published by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The visit, which took place over three days during the coronavirus pandemic, was the first ever to Iraq by a pope and saw an intense security operation.

The years before had seen increased sectarian violence in Iraq, with fighting between Shia and Sunni Muslims as well as the persecution of religious minorities.

The country’s Christian community had shrunk dramatically, having been targeted in particular by the Islamic State group and other Sunni extremists.

In excerpts of his autobiography, the Pope says “almost everyone advised me against” the visit but he felt he “had to do it”.

He says the plot was uncovered by British intelligence, who warned Iraqi police, and they in turn told his security detail once he had touched down.

“A woman packed with explosives, a young suicide bomber, was heading towards Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit,” he says.

“And a van had also set off at great speed with the same intention.”

The Pope adds that he asked a security official the following day what had happened to the would-be attackers.

“The [official] replied laconically: ‘They are no more’. The Iraqi police had intercepted them and blown them up,” he wrote.

The book, entitled Hope, is due to be published on 14 January.

The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to Reuters news agency.

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The incident occurred at an Islamic high school where a large crowd had gathered for a family event.

“While investigations are ongoing, the primary organisers of the event that led to this stampede have been taken into custody,” Makinde said in a statement posted on X.

Reuters could not immediately establish how many people had died or what caused the incident.

Emergency services, including medical personnel and ambulances, were immediately dispatched to the scene, Makinde said.

Security forces were also deployed to control the situation and prevent further casualties.

The event has been halted, and the rest of the attendees have been safely evacuated from the venue, he said.

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Boating accidents are common in Congo, where old, wooden vessels are the main form of transport between villages and are often loaded far beyond capacity.

The boat was carrying as many as 100 passengers when it sank on Tuesday in western Mai-Ndombe province, the local official said. The victims included 15 women, five men and two children.

“Until we have safer, metallic boats, we will continue to have shipwrecks. There are thousands of these wooden ones circulating on the waters of Mai-Ndombe,” the provincial governor Lebon Nkoso Kevani told Reuters.

He added that a team of provincial officials had deployed to the area to investigate and that many passengers were believed to have escaped to shore after the disaster.

In October, at least 78 people drowned when a boat carrying 278 passengers capsized in Lake Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Anicet Babanga, a senator for Mai-Ndombe province, told Reuters on Wednesday that around 30 people were confirmed to have survived the latest wreck, and that a search was underway to establish the fate of the other passengers.

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The approval marks the end of Shell’s nearly a century of operations in Nigerian onshore oil and gas and is part of a broader retreat by Western energy companies from Nigeria, including Exxon Mobil Italy’s Eni and Norway’s Equinor.

Shell’s sale to Renaissance, comprising five companies, was announced in January but was blocked in October by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

The regulator had cited Renaissance’s inability to demonstrate its capacity to manage the assets, which hold an estimated 6.73 billion barrels of oil and condensate, and 56.27 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The NUPRC and Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Renaissance said, “This approval marks a significant step forward from the announcement of the sale and purchase agreements in January”.

This week, Shell announced its Nigerian subsidiary had made a final investment decision on Bonga North, a deep-water project off the coast of Nigeria.

The project, which will help maintain oil and gas production at Bonga, will be connected to Shell’s Floating Production Storage and Offloading facility, where the oil company has a 55% stake.

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In his first press conference since his election as the US’s 47th president, he noted the differences between the first time he took office eight years back and today.

“In the first term, everyone was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend,” Trump mused to reporters at his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Responding to a question about his recent meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Trump suggested a change in tone from his earlier days in office.

“I don’t know, my personality changed or something,” he joked. Trump also revealed plans to meet Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in the coming days, signalling growing interest from some of the biggest names in the business.

When asked about New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted on bribery and fraud charges earlier this year, Trump hinted at the possibility of a pardon. “I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” he said.

Trump addressed concerns about recent drone sightings, saying the U.S. military knows more than it is sharing publicly.

Segun Olowookere was 17 years old in 2010 when he was arrested along with his accomplice, Morakinyo Sunday.

They were said to have attacked the home of a police officer and another person with an old-fashioned wooden gun and a sword but only got away with the poultry.

In 2014, Justice Jide Falola of the Osun State High Court sentenced the two to death by hanging after finding them guilty of forcefully breaking into the police officer’s house and stealing his belongings.

There was an outcry across Nigeria at the time as many felt the sentence was too harsh.

The duo were subsequently moved to the notorious Kirikiri maximum security prison in Lagos state where they’ve been in the death row wing.

In a statement on Tuesday, governor Ademola Adeleke directed that Olowookere should be pardoned as it was important to protect the sanctity of life.

“I have directed the Commissioner for Justice to initiate processes to grant the prerogative of mercy to the young man.

“Osun is a land of justice and equity. We must ensure fairness and protection of the sanctity of lives,” the governor posted on X.

The fate of Morakinyo Sunday, who was sentenced alongside Olowookere, is unclear as his name wasn’t mentioned in the statement.

For years, Olowookere’s parents, human rights groups and other Nigerians have fought for his release.

His parents were recently on a podcast where they cried and begged for their only child to be pardoned.

He is expected to be freed early in 2025.

Nigeria has not carried out an execution since 2012 but there are currently more than 3,400 people on death row.

A driver who inhaled laughing gas at the wheel has been jailed for nine years and four months after he admitted killing his three teenage passengers in a high-speed crash.

Thomas Johnson, 19, had admitted to taking nitrous oxide through balloons while driving and exceeding speeds of more than 100mph on a road with a speed limit of 30mph.

He pleaded guilty to causing the deaths earlier on Wednesday at Oxford Crown Court.

Addressing Johnson, Judge Emma Nott said his actions were “all for teenage thrills” and he would be “forever defined” by his “teenage mistakes”.

Daniel Hancock, 18, Ethan Goddard, 18, and Elliot Pullen, 17, died in the crash in Marcham, Oxfordshire, in June last year.

Their families have spoken of being “united by grief” by the tragedy and hope the sentence “will serve as a deterrent” to others.

Mobile phone video footage taken inside the BMW 3 series, moments before it crashed, showed the boys laughing and passing nitrous oxide canisters to the front while Johnson had a balloon to his face.

The tyres can be heard screeching as the vehicle drifts around a corner at high speed.

Thames Valley Police also released an ANPR photo of the driver and front passenger with balloons to their mouths.

CCTV footage shows the vehicle overtaking another car at more than 100mph. Police say the vehicle’s electronic stability control had been deliberately switched off.

Johnson, who sustained life-threatening injuries in the crash, says he does not remember what happened.

In a police interview afterwards, he revealed he was aware of the risks.

Asked if he had ever taken nitrous oxide, Johnson responded: “No, not this year. I remember doing it once last year with a group of friends before I could even drive but I don’t have any recollection after that.”

Asked if he remembered what the effect of it was, Johnson replied: “It made my head feel dizzy.”

Families hope sentence is ‘deterrent’

Commenting on the case, a joint family statement said: “No amount of imprisonment will bring our sons back home and we take little comfort in the sentencing of someone else’s son.

“However, we do hope that this will serve as a deterrent to other drivers, especially young men.

“If just one person adjusts their attitude to driving, or one person thinks twice about being a passenger along for the ride then there is hope that something good can come out of this tragedy.”

‘Permanent living nightmare’

Elliot Pullen’s parents, Kate and Giles, and his sister Mia issued a separate statement describing their sense of loss and being “united by grief” in what was a “permanent living nightmare”. They said they had been “sucked into a world of grief, sadness and pain”.

The parents of Ethan Goddard paid tribute, writing that he “was a fun, loving, kind, generous, caring young lad, always thinking of others, and getting the most out of life”.

They added he “was loved so very much and made his family so proud”.

Meanwhile, Daniel Hancock’s family said in a statement he “was truly loved and will always be missed. He was caring, generous and selfless.”

And they issued a warning to other young drivers.

“Daniel died three miles from home in a completely avoidable crash. Please don’t be that driver who shows such disregard for their friends’ lives.”

Detective Sergeant Tony Jenkins, of Thames Valley Police’s serious collisions investigative unit, explained that nitrous oxide impairs a driver’s ability to make decisions.

The prosecutor, Emmanuel Monday, told the court that the defendant allegedly committed the offence on September 4 at 60 Ogbaga Road, Kpirikpiri, in Abakaliki Local Government in Ebonyi State.

He told the court that the defendant had allegedly beaten his wife with iron rods until she died.

He said the offence was punishable under Section 319 (1) of the Criminal Code Law, Cap 33, Vol 1, Laws of Ebonyi State, 2009.

The Magistrate, Chinedu Agama, did not take Mr Chima’s plea because of lack of jurisdiction.

The magistrate further directed the police to send the case file to the Director of Public Prosecution for advice.

Agama adjourned the case until 31 December for further hearing.

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The suspects, including 148 Chinese and 40 Filipino nationals, were detained on December 10 at the seven-storey Big Leaf Building in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission spokesperson Wilson Uwujaren said.

The luxury building housed a call centre mostly targeting victims from the Americas and Europe, he added.

Staff there would make contact with people through social media and messaging platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, them seduce them online or offer them apparently lucrative investment opportunities, Uwujaren told reporters.

Once victims were hooked, they were pressured to transfer money for fake cryptocurrency schemes and other non-existent projects.

“Nigerian accomplices were recruited by the foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and several others from European countries,” Uwujaren said.

“Once the Nigerians are able to win the confidence of would-be victims, the foreigners would take over the actual task of defrauding the victims,” he said.

Uwujaren said the Commission was collaborating with international partners and would look into potential links to organised crime. Its agents seized computers, phones and vehicles in the raid, he added.

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Bitcoin has surged to a new record high, extending a rally that has seen the cryptocurrency’s price rise by more than 50% since Donald Trump’s victory in the 5 November election.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly passed $106,000 (£83,890), before falling back to around $105,000 in Asia trade on Monday.

The incoming Trump administration is seen as being far more friendly towards cryptocurrencies than the Biden White House.

On Thursday, the US president-elect reiterated that he is considering creating a national stockpile of the digital currency, similar to the country’s strategic oil reserve.

Last year, India nudged past China to become the world’s most populous country, according to UN estimates.

With nearly 1.45 billion people now, you’d think the country would be quiet about having more children. But guess what? The chatter has suddenly picked up.

Leaders of two southern states – Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – have recently advocated more children.

Andhra Pradesh is mulling providing incentives, citing low fertility rates and ageing population. The state also scrapped its “two-child policy” for local body elections, and reports say neighbouring Telangana may soon do the same. Next-door Tamil Nadu is also making similar, more exaggerated, noises.

India’s fertility rate has fallen substantially – from 5.7 births per woman in 1950 to the current rate of two.

Fertility rates have fallen below the replacement level of two births per woman in 17 of the 29 states and territories. (A replacement level is one at which new births are sufficient to maintain a stable population.)

The five southern Indian states lead India’s demographic transition, achieving replacement-level fertility well ahead of others. Kerala reached the milestone in 1988, Tamil Nadu in 1993, and the rest by the mid-2000s.

Arun chandra bose

The convicts are 34-year-old Wigbert Bandie, who hails from a village in Northwestern Ghana, and 30-year-old Adam Khadijah from Bole in the Savanna Region of Ghana.

Wigbert was sentenced to 63 months in November 2024 for various roles in exploiting connections to convince individuals to send them money via wire, cheque, U.S. mail, and package delivery services.

Adam Khadijah, on the other hand, was sentenced to 30 months in jail.

As part of the plea agreement filed with the court, Bandie pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349 and 1343.

Following his incarceration, Bandie will be on supervised release for three years. Brandie was also ordered to repay $2.18 million in restitution to the 11 victims in this case.

The two convicts were facing charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and money laundering. One other person, Mubarak Braimah, is still on the run.

It is alleged that from June 22, 2019, through December 31, 2019, the defendants conspired to defraud victims through romance scams, obtaining money under false pretences.

Wiggy Bandie and Mubarak Braimah allegedly targeted victims via social media, impersonating individuals overseas seeking relationships. They convinced victims to send money for shipping fees, promising profits from non-existent gold shipments. Khadijah Adam and Wiggy received these funds from the victims.

In one case, Wiggy Bandie, also known as “Kimberly McIntosh,” posed as an heiress to gold bars in Singapore, deceiving Richard Coleman, a Knoxville resident, into paying shipping fees.

Bandie created fake documents, including a memorandum of understanding for a 40% share of the gold, which Coleman signed. Mubarak Braimah, pretending to be a liaison for a fake shipping company, facilitated the scam, defrauding Coleman of $73,550.

JoyNews has learned that Wiggy Bandie, arraigned on November 27, 2023, was offered a plea bargain involving repayment and a six-year jail term, which he declined.

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High-profile Nigerian Pastor Tobi Adegboyega has dismissed claims that he was about to be deported from the UK, where his church is facing allegations of financial misconduct.

Pastor Adegboyega, leader of SPAC Nation (Salvation Proclaimer Ministries Limited), now known as Nation Family, told the BBC: “There is no deportation order. Let me make that clear.”

He said the court case was still an “ongoing issue.”

Sporting two jewel-encrusted rings and a Louis Vuitton tie, the preacher says he arrived in the UK aged 25 in 2005 on a visitor’s visa and assumed his family was handling his immigration paperwork.

The BBC has complained to Apple after the tech giant’s new iPhone feature generated a false headline about a high-profile murder in the United States.

Apple Intelligence, launched in the UK earlier this week, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to summarise and group together notifications.

This week, the AI-powered summary falsely made it appear BBC News had published an article claiming Luigi Mangione, the man arrested following the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson in New York, had shot himself. He has not.

A spokesperson from the BBC said the corporation had contacted Apple “to raise this concern and fix the problem”.

Apple declined to comment.

Ken Schwencke

The mix-up began when the family repatriated what they believed to be Peace’s body from a South African mortuary.

Peace had been tragically killed in a shootout in South Africa and his body aired to Zimbabwe.

Family members had initially expressed doubts about the identity of the body upon its arrival. However, the hearse driver dismissed their concerns, insisting it was Peace’s body.

“People even joked with the driver that if it turned out not to be our relative, he would bear the costs. But the driver was adamant he knew him,” said Patience Waziwanhaka, Peace’s sister-in-law.

The truth came to light on the day of the burial when South African authorities informed the driver of the mix-up.

Two days after the burial, the Malawian man’s body was exhumed, and the remains, along with Peace’s clothes and burial items, were taken back to South Africa.

The family is now consulting traditional leaders to address the cultural and spiritual repercussions of the mix-up.

“We thought we had given our son a befitting send-off, only to learn it was someone else,” said Theresa Tafirei, Peace’s aunt. “We don’t know the impact this will have on both families.”

Village head Tinonesana Sithole criticized the decision not to conduct a body viewing, stating it could have prevented the tragedy.

The family is now working to repatriate Peace’s actual remains from Pretoria, South Africa, so they can lay him to rest properly.

“We just want our son’s remains back,” said Martha Mutowo, Peace’s aunt.

The announcement was made in a statement by United States Attorney Susan Lehr of the District of Nebraska.

Kayode was arrested in April 2023 in Ghana at the behest of US law enforcement following an indictment filed in August 2019 in Omaha, Nebraska.

He is accused of participating in a sophisticated business email compromise (BEC) scheme that allegedly defrauded businesses of over $6 million between January 2015 and September 2016.

According to the indictment, Kayode and his accomplices impersonated high-ranking executives of various companies, using spoofed email accounts to deceive employees into executing unauthorized wire transfers.

The funds were then funneled into bank accounts controlled by Kayode, which were often linked to victims of romance scams.

Kayode made his initial court appearance on December 11, 2024, before United States Magistrate Judge Michael D. Nelson, who ordered him to remain detained pending his trial.

This case marks a continuation of efforts by U.S. authorities to dismantle the network involved in these scams.

Several co-conspirators have already faced justice: Adewale Aniyeloye, who sent fraudulent emails, was sentenced to 96 months in prison and ordered to pay over $1.5 million in restitution; Pelumi Fawehinimi, who facilitated bank accounts for the fraud, received 72 months; Onome Ijomone, involved in romance scams, was given 60 months after his extradition from Poland; and Alex Ogunshakin, another key figure in the scheme, was sentenced to 45 months following his extradition from Nigeria earlier this year.

FBI Omaha Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel stated the ongoing commitment to capturing the remaining fugitives involved in this operation, stating, “Our message to the remaining four co-conspirators; we are coming for you.” He highlighted the collaborative international effort, thanking Ghanaian authorities for their cooperation in Kayode’s extradition.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with significant assistance from the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.

It should be noted that an indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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His net worth surged to $447 billion on Wednesday, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after Tesla stock jumped 6% and SpaceX’s valuation leaped to $350 billion based on employee share sales.

Musk’s fortune has ballooned by $218 billion this year — a sum that exceeds the net worth of every other person on the rich list except Amazon’s Bezos ($249 billion) and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ($224 billion).

Musk is now more than twice as wealthy as Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($198 billion), and more than three times as rich as Warren Buffett ($144 billion).

His one-day gain — the largest in the index’s history — rivals the total wealth of Binance cofounder Changpeng Zhao, ranked 23rd with a $63.2 billion fortune. It also helped to lift the combined wealth of the 500 richest people on the planet to above $10 trillion for the first time, Bloomberg said.

Musk is now worth more on paper than the vast majority of US public companies, including Costco ($442 billion), Home Depot ($419 billion), and Netflix ($400 billion).

His wealth is largely made up of his roughly 13% stake and some contested stock options in Tesla, and his 42% slice of SpaceX. Musk’s other businesses include xAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X Corp, formerly Twitter.

Tesla shares have surged more than 70% this year to $425 at Wednesday’s close, valuing the company at nearly $1.4 trillion. That figure comfortably exceeds the roughly $1 trillion market value of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and approaches the $1.6 trillion value of Zuckerberg’s Meta.

The electric vehicle maker’s shares have soared as investors bet it will harness artificial intelligence in revolutionary products such as self-driving cars and humanoid robots.

Musk’s prominent role in Donald Trump’s campaign, and his emergence as a close advisor to the president-elect who’s tasked him with streamlining the US government, have also fueled optimism around his companies.

SpaceX is now valued at $350 billion based on the latest price paid by the company and its backers to buy shares from employees, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The Starlink owner’s valuation was previously $210 billion after a secondary share sale in June.

Three more men have accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of rape and sexual assault in a batch of new lawsuits alleging the rapper drugged and assaulted them.

The complaints, filed separately in New York Supreme Court on Thursday, involve incidents that allegedly occurred between 2019-22.

Two of the plaintiffs allege they went to parties with Mr Combs, where he “personally offered” them alcoholic drinks which made them unconscious, before they say he raped them.

The rapper’s lawyers dismissed the lawsuits, calling them “full of lies”. He remains in custody at a Brooklyn jail.

Getty Images

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju has become the youngest-ever world chess champion after beating defending champion China’s Ding Liren in a dramatic turn on Thursday.

Dommaraju, 18, is four years younger than the former record-holder, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he won the title in 1985.

The Chennai prodigy has long been a superstar in the chess world, having attained the status of chess grandmaster at the age of 12.

But he was seen as the outside challenger going into the final round of the FIDE World Chess Championship, held in Singapore this year.

A British hedge fund trader has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Denmark, after being found guilty of orchestrating a tax fraud that cost the Danish government more than £1bn.

It is the heaviest penalty ever given out in Denmark for a fraud case.

In addition to the prison term, financier Sanjay Shah, who was the founder of London-based hedge fund Solo Capital Partners, received a permanent entry ban to Denmark and will have assets worth $1bn (DKK 7.2bn) seized, as well as a string of properties.

He immediately appealed the decision on the spot. But will remain in custody.

US President Joe Biden has issued presidential pardons to 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes, and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others, including several convicted of multi-million dollar fraud schemes.

The White House described it as the most acts of presidential clemency issued in a single day. It comes after Biden made the decision to pardon his own criminally convicted son, Hunter Biden.

Announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer”.

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

The White House described it as the most acts of presidential clemency issued in a single day. It has not given the names of the people involved.

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

Earlier this month, Biden issued a controversial pardon to his son Hunter, which continued a recent trend of presidents pardoning people close to them.

Announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer”. Their non-violent convictions included drug offences.

The commuted sentences were for hundreds of people who were placed in home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, and who were facing sentences which Biden deemed to be too long under outdated laws.

They have “shown that they deserve a second chance”, Biden said.

Giving further details of the move, the White House said those receiving relief included a decorated military veteran and pilot who helped fellow church members, a nurse who helped with the Covid vaccine rollout, and an addiction counsellor.

Biden promised “more steps in the weeks ahead”.

The president will leave the White House on 20 January 2025, when his successor Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Biden previously had a record of pardoning fewer people than most presidents in modern US history.

He had issued a few categorical pardons in the past, however. These are pardons given to a sweeping number of people who fall under a category outlined by the president.

In October 2022, Biden issued a full pardon for those who had been convicted of simple possession of marijuana, and later expanded that to include other marijuana-related offenses.

Earlier this year, Biden issued another full pardon to military personnel and veterans who were convicted of an offence based on their sexual orientation.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his first term in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center. These included 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences.

Many were in a flurry before he left office.

Biden’s decision earlier this month to pardon his son, Hunter, continued a trend of presidents on both sides of the US political divide – including Trump – granting clemency to people close to them.

Biden Jr was facing sentencing for two criminal cases.

The move has proven controversial, since the outgoing president previously ruled out doing it. But he claimed the cases against his son were politically motivated.

Biden has also weighed issuing pre-emptive pardons for prominent critics of his successor Trump in a bid to shield them from retribution after the president-elect takes office, but has reportedly been concerned about the precedent it would set.

Elon Musk’s net worth has reached $400 billion, according to Bloomberg, making him the first person ever to cross that mark.

Behind his nearly $20 billion jump in wealth was a deal that shot up Musk’s rocket company SpaceX’s valuation to roughly $350 billion, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. SpaceX and its investors agreed to purchase as much as $1.25 billion of insider shares.

CNN has reached out to SpaceX for comment, but the company typically does not respond to media requests.

Since the aftermath of the 2024 US presidential election, Musk has enjoyed a huge surge in his personal wealth.

An alliance with President-elect Donald Trump has pushed his ventures to the forefront. Musk is the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the owner of X and CEO of other ventures, including Neuralink, xAI and the Boring Company.

Now, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, he will oversee a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), named after a memecoin.

Tesla shares closed at a record high on Wednesday, hitting $424.77 at market close. Musk, who is Tesla’s largest individual shareholder, has also enjoyed the stock propelling higher in part due to the broader market — NASDAQ topped 20,000 for the first time ever Wednesday.

Since Election Day, the EV maker’s stock has rallied roughly 65% on investors’ belief that Musk’s influence in the Trump administration will usher in an era of deregulation that will benefit the company.

His artificial intelligence startup, xAI, also more than doubled in value in November amid a new funding round, surging to $50 billion from a few months ago, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The world’s wealthiest man is now roughly $136 billion richer since November 5, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

While the top spots on the billionaires index typically switch around, Musk is racing past his wealthy peers. As of December 10, before his wealth skyrocketed to $400 billion, he was already $140 billion richer than the second-richest man on Earth, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Musk’s record-breaking Tesla-shareholder-approved pay package, which was worth $101 billion, was rejected by a Delaware court last week.

Bloomberg’s calculation still seems to include the pay package, which is now worth as much as $120 billion based on the current value of Tesla shares.

But Musk will still enjoy his riches, with numerous ways to gain significantly more wealth in the coming years.

Facebook has yet to confirm whether all its issues have been resolved.

“Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who’ve been affected by the outage,” Meta, which owns the apps, said on X.

Over 22,000 people reported issues with Facebook on Wednesday evening and over 18,000 struggled to use WhatsApp, according to outage-tracking site Downdetector.

Problems with the apps were reported in the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US.

“And we’re back, happy chatting!” WhatsApp said on X.

“Andddd we’re back – sorry for the wait, and thanks for bearing with us,” Instagram said.

The outages started around 18:00 GMT on Wednesday, according to Downdetector. Its numbers are based on reports of outages and the actual number of users affected may vary considerably.

Soon after users reported issues, Meta said it was aware of a “technical issue” that was “impacting some users’ ability to access our apps” and said it was working to fix things as soon as possible.

A variety of issues were reported including not being able to use the apps at all or feeds not refreshing for certain users.

“We’re aware of some issues accessing WhatsApp. We’re actively working on a solution and starting to see a return to normal for most people. We expect things to be back to normal shortly,” WhatsApp said around the same time.

Meta’s platforms are some of the most popular in the world. Facebook has over three billion active monthly users.

The biggest outage Meta experienced was in 2021 when founder Mark Zuckerberg apologised for the disruption caused.

On that occasion, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram services went down for almost six hours.

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Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray has said he will resign before President-elect Donald Trump, who has indicated he would fire him, takes office next month.

Wray announced at an internal FBI meeting on Wednesday that he had decided to step aside after weeks of consideration.

Trump has already nominated Kash Patel, who has called for “dramatically” limiting the FBI’s authority, to lead the law-enforcement agency.

Wray, whom Trump nominated in 2017 to a 10-year term, has faced criticism during his tenure from Republicans due to the FBI’s investigations into the former president after he left office.

Deobra Redden was ordered on Tuesday, December 10, to serve between 26 and 65 years in a Nevada prison for the attack on Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus, KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported.

Redden, 31, pleaded guilty but mentally ill in September to attempted murder and other charges, ending his trial shortly after Holthus had testified that she feared for her life when Redden vaulted over her 4-foot-high (1.2-meter-high) bench and landed on her.

The attack happened on Jan. 3 as Holthus was about to deliver Redden’s sentence in a separate felony battery case.

The violent scene was captured by courtroom video that showed the 62-year-old judge falling back from her seat against a wall as Redden flung himself over her bench and grabbed her hair, toppling an American flag onto them.

Holthus suffered some injuries but was not hospitalized, courthouse officials said.

Redden’s defense lawyer Carl Arnold has said his client was not taking his prescribed medication to control his diagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the attack.

Arnold said in September when Redden entered his plea that it “reflects a delicate balance between accepting responsibility for a regrettable incident and recognizing the impact of Mr. Redden’s untreated mental illness at the time.”

Redden said in court Tuesday that he did not intend to kill Holthus, KLAS-TV reported.

“I’m not making excuses for my actions, but I’m saying I’m not a bad person and I know that I did not intend to kill Mary Kay Holthus,” he said.

Redden will be eligible for parole sometime after 2050.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is doing “well” after undergoing surgery for a brain bleed, his doctors say.

The 79-year-old was taken to hospital in the capital, Brasília, on Monday after he had complained of a severe headache.

An MRI scan revealed the bleed and Lula was transferred to the renowned Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo to have it drained.

The intracranial haemorrhage was caused by a blow to the head he sustained when he fell in his bathroom at the presidential residence in October, according to a hospital statement.

Giovanni died on Monday following her third cancer diagnosis, her friend, the author Renée Watson, told NPR in a statement.

“We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us, to all her literary children across the writerly world,” said the poet Kwame Alexander.

Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr in 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee, but dubbed Nikki by her older sister, Giovanni studied at Fisk University in Nashville. There, she met several Black literary figures including Amiri Baraka and Dudley Randal before studying poetry at Columbia University School of the Arts.

She published her first two poetry collections in 1968 – Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgement – starting a career that would span more than 30 books including Those Who Ride the Night Winds and Bicycles: Love Poems.

She became part of the burgeoning Black Arts movement which included figures such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Thelonious Monk and Audre Lorde. As a civil rights activist and politically engaged writer, Giovanni also attracted the attention of the FBI; she told the Pittsburgh Press that she used to invite the agents monitoring her into her home “for coffee because I knew they wanted to check out the place”.

Writing accessible poetry about Black liberation, as well as poetry on love, gender and the small pleasures of family life, Giovanni became a public figure. She appeared on the Black arts show Soul! in conversation with the likes of Baldwin and Muhammad Ali, edited many volumes of poetry and essays, championed hip-hop and wrote several children’s books including Rosa, an award-winning biography of Rosa Parks.

Giovanni taught English at Virginia Tech from 1987 until 2022. In 2007, one of her former poetry students murdered 32 people in the Virginia Tech shooting. Giovanni later said she had asked the university to remove him from her class in 2005, saying she felt he was menacing.

Asked about the shooting, Giovanni said: “Killing is a lack of creation. It’s a lack of imagination. It’s a lack of understanding who you are and your place in the world. Life is an interesting and … good idea.”

When she died, she was working on a final poetry collection, as well as a memoir titled A Street Called Mulvaney.

“I used to think I’m mellowing,” Giovanni told the Guardian in February. “You know, getting to be an old lady and I’m really cool. And then I realised, no, there’s still quite a bit of anger.”

Giovannie was diagnosed with lung cancer in the 1990s and underwent several surgeries. She is survived by her son Thomas, her granddaughter, and her spouse, Virginia Fowler, an English professor who became Giovanni’s biographer before they married.

In a statement issued on December 10, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the country reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with Mr Mahama and strengthening its partnership with Ghana.

The United States has also pledged to support democratic governance and promote shared values of peace and development.

The statement further commended Ghana’s democratic process and ability to conduct peaceful and credible elections that uphold the principles of transparency and fairness.

The Electoral Commission(EC) has also been lauded for its commitment to ensuring a free and transparent electoral process. emphasising Ghana’s standing as a model of democracy and a beacon of stability in the African region.

Mr Mahama in the keenly contested election secured 6,328,397 votes, representing 56.55% of the valid votes cast.

His closest rival, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) garnered 4,657,304 votes, representing 41.61%.

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Read the full statement below:

In his message shared across social media, Obi described Mahama’s triumph as a testament to Ghana’s democratic values and a symbol of political maturity on the African continent.

He expressed optimism that Mahama’s presidency would bring transformative achievements in areas like education, health, and poverty alleviation while fostering progress and unity across Africa.

The congratulatory post was accompanied by a photo of the two leaders, signifying solidarity and a shared vision for Africa’s development.