Author: News Room

Kano State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency said it has recorded a major expansion in health insurance coverage, growing enrolment from 497,262 lives in 2023 to 933,014 in 2025, an increase of 87.6 per cent within two years. The Executive Secretary of the agency, Dr Rahila Muktar, disclosed this at a press briefing on Friday in Kano to mark the 2025 Universal Health Coverage Day. Muktar said the achievement showed the state government’s commitment to providing affordable and quality healthcare services to the residents through the Kano State Contributory Health Scheme. She said the 2025 UHC theme, ‘Unaffordable Health Costs: We…

Reigning national champion Muiz Adegoke will face a stern test as he defends his status against former champion Matthew Kuti and defending champion Abdulbasit Abdulfatai when the 3rd Daniel Ford Elite Youth Table Tennis Tournament serves off on Friday (today) at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall, Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos. Adegoke has been in blistering form over the past month, winning the maiden Governor Diri Top 16 Cup in Bayelsa and adding another title at a Lagos club tournament featuring some of Nigeria’s finest players. However, his record at the Daniel Ford tournament has been mixed — finishing in the top…

US rapper Cardi B has gone viral in Saudi Arabia, where the artist performed in the early hours of Sunday morning and unleashed a torrent of praise for the kingdom in a series of social media videos. Saudi Arabia has been splashing out in recent years amid an ambitious economic reform drive that has included spending vast sums on celebrity appearances as it seeks to rebrand its image and attract non-oil investment. “Everything is brand new, honey. This country looks like it was just opened up yesterday,” the artist said in a video posted on Instagram that has been widely…

Gen. Christopher Musa (retd.) has returned to public service as Nigeria’s Minister of Defence, transitioning from his previous role as Chief of Defence Staff, where he exercised direct operational command, into a politically moderated and bureaucratic environment. SOLOMON ODENIYI contrasts Musa’s former military leadership with the expectations of his ministerial role to address the nation’s escalating security challenges. When Gen Christopher Musa (retd.) returned to public service on Friday as Minister of Defence, he was received by cheering civilian and military staff at the ministry.The absence of the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, was notable but did not…

LG says it will let users delete the Microsoft Copilot shortcut it installed on newer TVs after several reports highlighted the unremovable icon. In a statement to The Verge, LG spokesperson Chris De Maria says the company “respects consumer choice and will take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish.”Last week, a user on the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit posted an image of the Microsoft Copilot icon in their lineup of apps on an LG TV, with no option to delete it. “My LG TV’s new software update installed Microsoft Copilot, which cannot be deleted,” the post…

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has flagged in a lawsuit that third-party Bitcoin mining hosting services can be a securities offering, a position strongly opposed by one industry executive.The SEC sued the Bitcoin (BTC) mining company VBit and its founder, Danh Vo, in a Delaware federal court on Wednesday, accusing them of fraud and misappropriating around $48 million in investor funds between 2018 and 2022 by selling a greater number of hosting agreements than there were mining rigs.“VBit’s Hosting Agreements are investment contracts and therefore securities,” the SEC claimed, arguing that VBit’s investment contracts meet the criteria of the…

Hollywood has mourned the deaths of some of its most legendary stars in 2025. Over the summer, we lost Anne Burrell, Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Brandon Blackstock. Thank You! You have successfully subscribed. Jane Goodall, Diane Keaton, D’Angelo, Marshawn Kneeland and more passed away in October and November. December saw the death of former So You Think You Can Dance contestant Donyelle Jones, director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, as well as Gil Gerard, and NASCAR star Greg Biffle. Scroll down to remember all the stars who died in 2025:

The World Health Organization (WHO)’s Second Global Summit on Traditional Medicine, jointly organized with the Government of India, opens today, bringing together government Ministers, scientists, Indigenous leaders, and practitioners from more than 100 countries. The Summit is expected to announce major scientific initiatives and new commitments aimed at advancing the implementation of the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034, centred on stronger evidence, better regulation, systems integration, collaboration and community engagement. Traditional medicine (TM) encompasses codified and non-codified systems that predate biomedicine and have continued to evolve for contemporary use. For many, TM remains the main source of healthcare—locally accessible,…

(This is the second and final part of this report. You can read the first part here.) On a windy Tuesday afternoon on 18 February, Akaninyene Nelson had just returned from tapping palm wine in a swamp several kilometres from Ikot Ebom Itam, a community in Itu Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. Sitting shirtless on a wooden bench, the tapper danced with his head and hands to music from a rechargeable radio set on a rickety bamboo table and gulped palm wine from a calabash. Known as “Inyang” in the community, the 52-year-old father of six took up…

Farmers in Ondo, Osun and Ekiti have identified a lack of storage facilities, poor road networks, unreliable power supply and security as challenges confronting farming activities and often leading to massive post-harvest losses. The farmers, in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), also noted that the high cost of farm inputs undermines farming activities and further reduces yields. They observed that these challenges make it increasingly difficult for farmers to maintain their livelihoods. The farmers appealed to the government for timely intervention in tackling these challenges, which, by extension, will boost high yield and curb post-harvest losses.…