Author: News Room

We’ve got a special Decoder today — I had the chance to talk with Amy Lanzi, the CEO of Digitas North America, in front of a live audience at the Uber Villa at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the South of France. I know, it’s a hard gig, but I do it for you.Amy has been on Decoder three times now, and she’s one of my favorite people to chat with — she is clear-eyed about what the advertising industry really is and does for brands and what all the money sloshing around the ad-supported internet really accomplishes. You’ll…

Most crypto investors still obsess over price charts. But in 2026, a growing share of attention is shifting back to improving the fundamentals of the protocols. Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche are preparing some of their largest protocol upgrades in years, while Coinbase’s Base network rolled out its Beryl hard fork last Friday in a bid to streamline the network, with a native token standard and shorter withdrawal windows.Bitcoin development however, remains frozen, with developers still arguing over controversial covenant proposals and post-quantum computing upgrades.Tim Sun, a senior researcher at Hong Kong-based asset manager HashKey Group, told Cointelegraph that protocol upgrades…

TMZ founder Harvey Levin is weighing in after a report emerged that three ransom notes sent to the website and other media outlets in connection with Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance were deemed fake by the FBI. Reuters reported on Tuesday, June 29, that the FBI has dismissed three notes, including two received by TMZ, in the months since Nancy, the mother of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her home near Tucson, Arizona, on February 1. One of the notes received by TMZ and local Tucson outlets in February demanded millions of dollars in cryptocurrency for Nancy’s return. Another note…

The death toll from the communal violence in Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State has risen to 18 following fresh attacks, despite ongoing peace efforts by security agencies and local authorities. PREMIUM TIMES had earlier reported that the crisis, believed to have stemmed from a longstanding land dispute between two communities in Godoro village, claimed two lives. Providing an update on the situation, the police spokesperson in Niger State, Wasiu Abiodun, said the initial incident occurred on 29 June at about 11:30 p.m. in Godoro village, Katako District, when suspected armed men shot and killed 25-year-old Ibrahim Musa. Mr…

Two policemen attached to the Imo State Police Command have been confirmed dead following a road accident involving seven operatives along the Amakalu–Umuelemma Road in the Isiala Mbano Local Government Area. The Command has commenced investigation into the circumstances surrounding the accident that led to the fatalities. Imo State Command Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Henry Okoye, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday. According to Okoye, the accident occurred on Monday, June 29th while the seven Police operatives were on the Amakalu–Umuelemma Road in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area. He said the commenced a thorough investigation to ascertain the…

UK regulators are calling for tokenization and “new forms of digital money” to be part of the core infrastructure of the country’s future retail payment ecosystem.In a Thursday update to the government’s roadmap for modernizing retail payment systems, HM Treasury on behalf of the Payments Vision Delivery Committee said that including tokenization and digital money would advance its efforts to create a “diverse multi-money ecosystem.”“Programmable payments, including those that rely on tokenization,” were named as potential “product-level arrangements” that may support payment innovation in the country, the agency update said.The update of November’s National Payments Vision document calls for infrastructure…

Jennifer Aniston offered a rare look into her life with boyfriend Jim Curtis one year after they were spotted together. The Friends alum, 57, shared a “summer dumper” carousel via Instagram on Wednesday, July 1, which included multiple photos of her beau. One picture showed them strolling down the street, while another offered a cheeky look at Curtis, 50, working out in the gym. In another shot, Aniston blew a kiss to the camera as Curtis smiled in the background. Several other photos in the carousel showcased the actress hanging out with friends on a series of summer outings. The…

Adeniyi Adeyemi, the man accused of forging government appointment letters and parading himself as Director-General of a non-existent Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) and Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), has spoken to PREMIUM TIMES from hiding, insisting the presidency is only trying to silence him. Mr Adeyemi, who spoke to this newspaper on Thursday, denied wrongdoing and said the government’s actions amounted to a “defence mechanism” against him. “You know the government we have. They are just playing a defence mechanism to shut me up. My organisation was set up in 2024,” he said. When asked to meet in…

…Rodney must be placed at the centre of a people-centred historiography of Sierra Leone, even if he has not been institutionally recognised as such. His interest was not in rulers alone, nor in ethnic origins as static inheritances, nor in colonial institutions as the natural containers of history. He was interested in social formations. He wanted to understand how communities produced, exchanged, fought, ruled, absorbed outsiders, generated dependents, and responded to the pressures of long-distance trade. His was a history of ordinary people, but not in a sentimental sense. Walter Rodney occupies a strange place in the historiography of Sierra…

As electricity costs continue to rise across Nigeria, energy efficiency is becoming an increasingly important consideration for households buying home appliances, prompting manufacturers to introduce products designed to reduce long-term power consumption. The trend was evident in Lagos on Friday when consumer electronics manufacturer TCL Electronics unveiled a new range of inverter air conditioners, smart televisions and connected home appliances aimed at consumers seeking lower electricity bills and smarter home technologies. TCL, which operates in more than 160 markets worldwide, also announced SIMS Nigeria Limited as its sole distribution and after-sales partner in Nigeria. Consumer priorities shifting Industry players say…