Today is a memorable day for America.
In a historic ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that
same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry nationwide, Bloomberg reports.
According to the report:
Voting 5-4, the justices said states lack any legitimate reason to deprive gay couples of the freedom to marry. Justice Anthony Kennedy
joined the court’s four Democratic appointees in the majority, bringing
gay weddings to the 14 states where they were still banned.
Gay couples “ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” Kennedy wrote. “The Constitution grants them that right.”
The ruling is a legal landmark, on par with the 1967 Supreme Court
decision that guaranteed interracial couples the right to wed. It
punctuates a period of sweeping change in the rights of gays, coming
only 11 years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow
same-sex marriages.
In the huge rush to beat the Bank Verification Number enrollment
deadline which is June 30th, 2015 however, customers of an old
generation bank engaged in a brawl with members of staff of the bank in
the banking hall in Enugu State.
Customers were gripped by fear
over the reports that their bank accounts will be frozen if they don't
enroll before the deadline.
The insistence on the BVN by bank cashiers before attending to customers also increased such fear.
The
development led to an unusually large turnout of customers at banking
halls in the Coal City and this has been happening since the beginning
of the week.
However, the matter took a different turn at an old
generation bank, located in the Independence Layout area of Enugu on
Thursday.
Trouble started when security personnel and operations
staff of the financial institution asked some customers to go outside
the banking hall to wait their turn.
About 100 customers, who had been at the bank since 6am, had trooped into the banking hall when the doors were opened by 8am.
In
a bid to maintain order, the bank officials asked the first 10 among
the customers to fill the BVN forms and join about 30 others who did not
complete the registration the previous day.
The other customers were told to leave the banking hall, and wait outside. But the directive did not go down well with the customers, who protested, causing commotion in the banking hall.
The
situation degenerated into a full blown fight when some customers
violently resisted an attempt by the bank officials to lead them out of
the banking hall.
In the ensuing fracas, a young man engaged an
armed riot policeman, who was attached to the bank, in a fight, while
another customer exchanged blows with a bank worker.
The
situation further escalated as some customers, who wanted to capitalize
on the confusion to move to the front of the queue, were physically
resisted by those who were already there.
Normalcy eventually
returned after other bank security personnel, who were outside, stormed
the banking hall to overpower the violent customers.
The branch manager of the bank later announced that the bank would open on Saturday to continue the enrollment.
The
branch manager, who did not disclose her name, complained that the
customers had waited until the last minute before coming to enroll for
the BVN.
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the immediate dissolution of
the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
The decision was conveyed in a letter, dated June 26, 2015, signed by
the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Danladi Kifasi.
The letter quoted President Buhari as thanking members of the dissolved board for their services to the nation.
The NNPC is the state-run oil company which oversees Nigeria’s oil
and gas industry. It’s board is statutorily headed by the minister of
petroleum resources.
The corporation regulates the oil and gas sector, and also operate as
a joint venture partner representing the government in deals with oil
multinationals.
The NNPC has in recent years been accused of large scale corruption,
the latest being the alleged disappearance of $20 billion oil money.
An independent audit ordered by the Nigerian government in 2014
concluded that the corporation has an outstanding $1.48 billion it
should pay to the government.
The NNPC has yet to make the payment several months after the release of the audit report.
You may want to sit down for this one, Brangelina fans: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are getting diverced!
At least that's what the new issue of In Touch is claiming, and when has a tabloid ever lied to you?
"Insiders" are claiming that things started to go wrong from the moment Pitt and Jolie got married last
summer. You would think they would've had some idea of what to expect
after more than a decade together, but apparently not:
“He says she’s controlled him from day one of their relationship,” says
one source. “Although he liked her taking charge at first, he’s come to
resent the power he’s allowed her to have over him.”
Yes, according to In Touch, Brad is the one who's walking out:
“He’s the one who’s calling time on their marriage. He’s told Angie
they’re over, ” says the source. “He’s beyond miserable and wants out.”
Somewhere, Jennifer Aniston is cackling maniacally while stroking the
cat that she uses as a substitute for the children she never had.
Or maybe she would be if this story is something to go with.
The magazine goes on to claim that Brad and Angie will slog through
their promotional duties for the upcoming By the Sea, and then announce
their split before the end of 2015.
It's a good thing they're giving us plenty of time to stock up on tissues for the river of tears that's soon to come.
A Colombian Air Force chief described their survival as "a miracle".
Maria
Nelly Murillo, 18, and her one-year-old son were found by rescuers near
to where their small Cessna plane crashed in Choco province.
Ms Murillo had some injuries and burns while her baby appeared to be in good health.
The
twin-engine Cessna plane, which was carrying fish and coconuts, had
been flying from the town of Nuqui on the Pacific coast to Quibdo, the
capital of Choco.
Baby Yudier Moreno was held by a rescuer on the flight back to Quibdo
It disappeared from the radar of the civil aviation authorities 20 minutes into the flight.
When the pilot did not respond to any calls, officials knew something was wrong and despatched a plane to search the area.
It
took the search team two days until they finally spotted a white dot in
the dense jungle, which turned out to be the remains of the Cessna.
It had crashed, for reasons not yet known, in the Alto Baudo region.
When the search team reached the Cessna, they found its pilot, Carlos Mario Ceballos, dead in the cockpit.
There was no trace of Ms Murillo or her baby, Yudier Moreno, which the passenger list said had been on board.
But
according to Col Hector Carrascal of the Colombian Air Force, rescuers
took hope when they noticed that the cabin door was ajar.
Search and rescue aircraft found the wreck of the plane. The cause of the crash is unclear
"It could have opened on impact, but it could have been opened from the inside," he said.
"But
that's when we started to worry. We didn't have a clue what had
happened to them: they could be lost in the jungle trying to survive or
they could have died already."
But then the rescuers found clues which led them to believe Ms Murillo and her baby could still be alive.
Coconut shells near the plane and a discarded flip flop in the jungle lifted their hopes.
They
also found the baby's birth certificate near a tree, which convinced
them that Ms Murillo was trying to leave a trace of her path through the
jungle.
Part of the search party scoured the jungle on foot
while others flew over the area in a helicopter using a loudspeaker to
shout Ms Murillo's name and urge her to return to the crash site.
But for two days their search yielded no results.
Finally, on Wednesday, they located Ms Murillo about 500m from the site of the crash in a ravine on the banks of a river.
Ms Murillo and her baby were taken by helicopter to a hospital in Quibdo
"It's a miracle. It is a very wild area and it was a catastrophic accident," Col Carrascal said.
Of the baby, he said: "His mother's spirit must have given him strength to survive."
The couple were airlifted to a hospital in Quibdo.
Ms
Murillo told medical staff that she had managed to open the cabin door
and run into the jungle as fire was spreading in the cabin.
She then reportedly went back for her baby, at which time she sustained burns to her face, an arm and a leg.
Afraid the plane might explode, she walked into the jungle along the bank of a small river.
Details
of how she survived are still sketchy, but local media said she came
across a couple of indigenous people who helped her.
She was also able to drink coconut water from the coconuts the plane had been carrying, local media said.
She
reportedly heard the calls over loudspeaker from the rescue helicopter
which prompted her to make her way back to the crash site.
She is being treated for her injuries in hospital. Her baby son is said to be unharmed.
The owner of the SUV parked his car at a car wash for it
to be washed by one of the boys and left.
Shortly before he returned
there were rumours that some FCT environmental taskforce were heading
towards that place, and alas the man jumped into the SUV and wanted to
move it away from the premises knowing fully well he had never handled
one before or could really drive.
As he left the premises he lost control of the car, hit a tree still
managed to push forward then ended it on a fence. The car owner came and
met his car in the condition you now see.
A 20-year-old Kenyan woman, has confessed to killing three children,
one of them her one-week old son, removed his intestines and ate them
raw. The woman who lives in Korogocho, a slum in Nairobi, is said to
have have slit open her one-week-old son’s stomach, removed his
intestines and ate them before going to her friend’s house and killing
two other children.
The friend, Nelius Muthoni, told the police that the
vampire woman came to her house in the morning and attacked her by
trying to strangle her.
“She kept asking me why I named my son Peter Kimani and asked if I
knew that my mother-in-law had been eating me. She said a lot of things
and even said that there were demons inside me. I ran out of the house
to seek help from neighbours and when they arrived, they found her
holding my 10-days-old son by the neck and under her feet was my
4-year-old daughter. She was stepping on her neck. The neighbours pushed
her out of the house and tried to help the children but they were
announced dead at a nearby clinic.”
When she was pushed out of the house, the woman is said to have run
to the Korogocho Administration Police post where she reported that she
had killed her child. A police officer said: “As we were interrogating
her, neighbours who learnt that Muthoni’s children had died, also came
here. They wanted to beat her but we shielded her.”
A neighbour who was at the police post said the woman did not seem
shaken and even asked for a soda at some point. The police have also
concluded plans to take her for a medical examination to ascertain her
state of mental health.
A 40-yr-old pastor in Zimbabwe has been arrested and charged to court for having carnal knowledge of a teenage girl, impregnating her in the process.....
Elisha Persuade Nhando of Kingdom Fellowship Church had admitted to impregnating his 15-year old adopted daughter after making her believe he was simply testing” her virginity.
Appearing before the magistrate, Elijah Makomo, the pastor said he thought the teenage girl was 17-yrs-old.
However, when Mr Makomo asked the witnesses, who
included the complainant, to stand up in court to be advised of the next
court hearing, the packed gallery was shocked when they saw the
complainant, who looked much younger than the age claimed by the pastor.
Local newspaper, The Herald reports that at law, the age of sexual consent in Zimbabwe is 16.
Pastor Nhando, who is being charged with engaging in sex with a minor, was remanded in custody before commencement of trial.
Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Co-coordinator of the BringBackOurGirls (BBOG)
campaign Movement, says the group has written President Muhammadu
Buhari, seeking a meeting with him over the missing Chibok girls.
Ezekwesili told newsmen on Thursday in Lagos that the movement was
seeking to meet President Buhari over the fate of the missing girls and
efforts to successfully bring them back.
Some women, led by Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, protesting the abduction of 230 school girls in Chibok, Borno State.
She said that the group was not giving up on the girls. ”We have
written to request for a meeting with the President as we did on several
occasions with the previous government. ”The meeting shall enable us to
express our deep anxieties at the failure of the Federal Government to
rescue our 219 Chibok girls.
”We shall also use the meeting to understand and contribute to
the strategy for countering terrorism, ensuring post-insurgency recovery
and other related issues. ”We have formally written on behalf of the
BringBackOurGirls movement in Abuja, nationwide, and all over the world
to the President and sought to meet with him.
”We now await official confirmation and schedule for the
meeting from the President; 276 Chibok schoolgirls abducted, 57 escaped,
219 still missing, zero rescued and we are not giving up on them, ”she
said.
The female students were kidnapped from the Government Secondary
School in Chibok, Borno State on the night of April 15, 2014. The Boko
Haram sect claimed responsibility for the kidnap of the girls.
