Author: News Room
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended the deadline for the submission of the list of candidates for the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections for the 2027 general elections to 11 August. Mohammed Haruna, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information Voter Education Committee, announced the extension in a statement in Abuja on Sunday. Mr Haruna noted that the extension of the deadline for the upload of nominations onto the commission’s dedicated portal followed appeals by political parties. “The submission window which, according to the revised time table and schedule of activities for the general elections, originally scheduled…
Elders in the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress have met with a former governor of the state, Bisi Akande, to review the party’s preparations ahead of Saturday’s governorship poll. Although the meeting was held at Akande’s country home in the Ila Orangun area of the state on Saturday, a photograph taken after the meeting showing Akande and his deputy, Senator Iyiola Omisore, walking hand-in-hand went viral on Sunday. Two participants at the meeting who preferred anonymity as they were not authorised to comment on the matter told The PUNCH that the party’s governorship campaigns were reviewed, and…
Australia’s anti-money laundering watchdog has suspended the operation of Cryptolink’s Bitcoin ATMs for three months, citing “ongoing concerns” about its compliance with anti-money laundering obligations. Australia has the highest number of crypto ATMs of all countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Australian authorities have been cracking down on the criminal use of crypto ATMs since at least late 2024. AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said Monday the company’s Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registration has been suspended for three months starting Sunday, meaning its crypto ATMs will not be allowed to operate during that time. AUSTRAC said Cryptolink failed to meet basic reporting requirements,…
Elijah Wood and The Lord of the Rings cast recently reunited, proving you can always journey back to the Shire. “The band’s all here,” Sean Astin wrote via Instagram on Saturday, August 8, snapping a selfie from a recent gathering with Wood, 45, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan. Monaghan, 49, shared another image from the cast’s low-key reunion, revealing the group dined at La Royal in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Four Halflings. Three cocktails. Two desserts. ONE great night of conversation. More to come,” Monaghan teased of the evening. “#becurious shoutout to the couple [photobombing] in the back. Well played. Thank you…
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) says it will deploy a dedicated Passport Intervention Team to the United Kingdom to facilitate the processing and issuance of passports to Nigerians in the country. In a statement on Sunday, which was tweeted on the NIS’s official X page, the intervention was directed by the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and is scheduled to commence on 10 August 2026. “As part of ongoing efforts to further ease and streamline passport applications for Nigerians in the diaspora, the Honourable Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has directed the Comptroller-General of Immigration, KN Nandap, to deploy…
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that a vaccine called Ervebo be prioritised for a randomised clinical trial against Bundibugyo virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).The recommendation followed preliminary animal study data suggesting that the vaccine may provide some cross-protection against the disease, particularly in reducing deaths. WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Candidate Vaccine Prioritisation made the recommendation at its third meeting on 31 July, after reviewing available evidence on the vaccine’s safety, efficacy, availability and feasibility. The development comes as the DRC continues to respond to an outbreak of Ebola disease caused by the Bundibugyo…
Nigeria’s Flying Eagles fell 4-1 to Burkina Faso in the final of the 2026 WAFU Zone B U-20 Championship on Sunday at the Stade Charles Konan Banny in the Ivorian city of Yamoussoukro. It was a tough afternoon for the defending champions, who were undone by a blistering first-half display from the Young Stallions and could not recover despite a spirited second-half push. Burkina Faso came out with clear intent and took full control inside the first 45 minutes. Three quick goals put the Burkinabe 3-0 up at the break, exposing gaps in Nigeria’s backline that the opponents exploited with…
Nigeria’s tax collections have surged by 113 per cent in less than three years, rising from N12.3tn in 2023 to N27.1tn as of July 2026, the Nigeria Revenue Service has said. The revenue authority attributed the sharp increase to the digitisation of the tax system, the enactment of four new tax reform laws, the transformation of the revenue service and an executive order aimed at closing loopholes in the tax system. The NRS, in an internal report on the state of the Nigerian economy obtained by The PUNCH on Sunday, insisted that the country was moving from a period of…
The first sign that quantum computing has broken modern cryptography probably won’t be a splashy theft of Satoshi Nakamoto’s dormant Bitcoin. It could just be a wave of unrelated crypto wallet breaches with no trace of how an attacker did it, according to the founder of blockchain startup Quantus. “When someone cracks your key, you don’t get a memo saying how they did it,” Christopher Smith, CEO and co-founder of Quantus Network, told Cointelegraph. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive a private key from public keys exposed onchain, allowing an attacker to move funds without compromising a wallet, device or…
The Real Housewives of Potomac star Karen Huger purposefully kept her circle small during her incarceration. “Bravo stood by me when I went through a lot,” Karen, 63, told E! News on Tuesday, August 4, recalling her recent jail sentence. “I often credit the courage that I had from the training I had as a Housewife to make it through and to get sober and to be clean.” According to Karen, executive producer Andy Cohen was on the shortlist of friends she was able to maintain contact with during her sentence. “Andy was one of the few people that I…
