The Executive Secretary of Zamfara State Emergency Management Agency, Bala Ahmad on Friday, confirmed the collapse of mining pits trapping several artisanal miners.
The tragic event occurred in the Kadauri community, Maru Local Government Area of the state.
Ahmad, who gave the confirmation to the News Agency of Nigeria in Gusau on Friday, however, did not give further information on the incident which occurred on Thursday night.
The ES said that he was in a meeting with stakeholders, assuring to give further details on the incident in due course.
Local community leaders, however, told NAN via telephone that many artisanal miners were trapped following the collapse of mining pits.
They said that the mining pits collapsed after several hours of rain in the area.
The locals said that the number of casualties and those still trapped in the mining pits was not yet known.
They, however, said those who sustained injuries were being treated at the Maru General Hospital.
The locals said they were battling alongside officers of the state to rescue survivors still trapped in the collapse pits.
PUNCH Online had reported that a tragic mining accident occurred in the Dura community, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, where four miners lost their lives after a mining site collapsed.
According to eyewitnesses, the incident happened on Thursday night when the ground collapsed on four individuals working in the pit. (Punch)
Carlos Alcaraz admitted his ankle injury had worried him and was on his mind as he beat Belgium’s Zizou Bergs 6-4, 6-3 at the Japan Open on Saturday.
The world number one hurt himself two days earlier in his opening match in Tokyo, crumpling to the ground before playing on with his ankle heavily strapped.
The Spaniard was left sweating on his fitness but he showed no evidence of discomfort as he returned to the court to beat world number 45 Bergs in front of an adoring Japanese crowd.
Alcaraz got the job done in an hour and 20 minutes and will face American Brandon Nakashima in the quarterfinals on Sunday.
“I was a bit worried before the match so I just wanted to warm up and let’s see how it’s going to feel,” Alcaraz said.
“I didn’t feel anything in the ankle, so after the warm-up I decided I can go and I can play.”
Alcaraz took to the court with white strapping visible underneath the sock on his left ankle.
He did not appear to be restricted in his movement but he limped briefly after chasing a shot that won Bergs a break early in the first set.
“In some movements I’m scared about going crazy so most of the time I take it a little easy,” he said.
“Sometimes I feel a little bit the ankle, which I would say is normal.”
Alcaraz is playing in Japan for the first time and delighted the crowd with a series of leaping forehand winners, claiming the first set despite having his service broken twice.
His service was broken three times overall and he blamed his injury for his lack of accuracy.
“I think because my thoughts were on the ankle, I forgot about doing a smooth movement, smooth serve,” he said.
Alcaraz raced into an early lead in the second set but Bergs made him work hard for the victory with a gritty performance.
Alcaraz sealed the deal with a thumping forehand at the net that Bergs could not return into play.
Alcaraz will look to book his place in the semi-final when he faces world number 33 Nakashima, who beat Hungarian qualifier Marton Fucsovics 7-5, 6-3.
“I’m still taking care of the ankle and I will try to feel as good as today or even better,” said Alcaraz.
“Tomorrow is going be a great challenge that I’m really excited about, and I’m ready for that.”
Denmark’s number three seed Holger Rune also advanced, beating American qualifier Ethan Quinn 6-4, 6-2. (JapanToday)
Two migrants died overnight while trying to cross the Channel to Britain, French authorities said Saturday, adding that some 60 others had been rescued.
The incident occurred south of the beaches of Neuchâtel-Hardelot, when about 100 people were trying to get to the UK on a makeshift boat.
About 60 people “are currently being taken care of”, Isabelle Fradin-Thirode, an official in nearby Montreuil-sur-Mer, said.
The incident brings the number of Channel crossing deaths to at least 25 this year, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Since January, a record 31,000 migrants have arrived in Britain by crossing the Channel in small boats.
Under a recent Franco-British scheme, the UK can return them after arrival if they are deemed ineligible for asylum, including those who have passed through a “safe country” to reach UK shores.
In return, London will accept an equal number of migrants from France who are likely to have their asylum claims granted. (Punch)
There was a flurry of stoppage-time goals in the Premier League on Saturday — and one of them ended Liverpool’s 100% start to its title defense.
Eddie Nketiah’s strike in the seventh minute of added-on time secured Crystal Palace a 2-1 victory over the champions and extended the London team’s unbeaten run to 18 games stretching back to April.
Liverpool, which won its first five games of the campaign, saw its lead trimmed to three points — with second-place Palace now its unlikely closest challenger.
The Reds have made a habit of scoring late goals themselves this season and Federico Chiesa’s 87th-minute effort looked like securing a draw at Selhurst Park — or even giving them a chance of grabbing a sixth straight win.
Chelsea played almost the whole second half with 10 men against Brighton and paid the price, conceding two goals in stoppage time to lose 3-1 for a second straight defeat.
Erling Haaland scored in the 90th minute and again in injury time to wrap up Manchester City’s 5-1 win over Burnley.
Tottenham scored in the fourth minute of stoppage time through Joao Palhinha to draw 1-1 with Wolverhampton, which collected its first point of the campaign.
And Manchester United’s latest loss was sealed by a stoppage-time goal for Brentford, which won 3-1. It could have been so different had Bruno Fernandes’ penalty not been saved by Brentford goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher in the 76th minute, denying United an equalizer for 2-2.
Bournemouth also scored in stoppage time to earn a 2-2 draw at Leeds and Sunderland won 1-0 at Nottingham Forest, whose recently hired manager Ange Postecoglou has yet to win a game in five matches at his new club.
Liverpool had not been entirely convincing in gaining a maximum 15 points and Arne Slot’s team was undone again by Palace, which beat the Reds in a penalty shootout to win the Community Shield before the English season began.
Palace took the lead in the ninth minute through Ismaila Sarr and wasted a string of chances to move further ahead — with striker Jean-Philippe Mateta the biggest culprit.
Nketiah’s goal was scrappy but maintained Palace’s long undefeated run under Oliver Glasner, who has kept the team playing well despite losing star midfielder Eberechi Eze to Arsenal late in the transfer window.
“If one team deserved to win today it was Palace,” Slot said. (JapanToday)
Unidentified drones have flown over Denmark’s military sites, including its biggest base, the latest in a slew of incursions near airports and critical infrastructure this week, which officials have called a “hybrid attack” and hinted at possible Russian involvement.
“The Danish Defence can confirm that drones were observed at several of the Danish Defence’s locations last night. Several capabilities were deployed,” an army spokesperson said on Saturday, without specifying where the drones were observed.
Police said “one to two drones” were observed at about 8:15pm (18:15 GMT) on Friday near and over the Karup military base in western Denmark, the country’s biggest base, which houses all of the armed forces’ helicopters, airspace surveillance, flight school and support functions.
Police spokesman Simon Skelkjaer said they could not comment on where the drones came from, adding: “We didn’t take them down.”
The Karup base shares its runways with the Midtjylland civilian airport, which was briefly closed, though no flights were affected as none were scheduled at that hour, Skelkjaer said.
Mysterious drone observations across the Scandinavian country over the past week have prompted the closure of several airports, including Copenhagen airport, the Nordic region’s busiest, which closed for several hours late on Monday.
Five smaller airports, both civilian and military, were also shut temporarily in the following days.
Drone reports also closed Oslo airport for several hours earlier in the week, following drone incursions in Polish and Romanian territory and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets, which raised tensions in light of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Thursday said “over recent days, Denmark has been the victim of hybrid attacks,” referring to unconventional warfare.
Investigators have so far failed to identify those responsible, but Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on Thursday the flights appeared to be “the work of a professional actor”.
Frederiksen has pointed the finger at Russia, saying it is the “main country that poses a threat to Europe’s security”.
Moscow said on Thursday it “firmly rejects” any suggestion that it was involved in the Danish incidents. In a social media post, its embassy in Copenhagen called them “a staged provocation”.
The drone flights began just days after Denmark announced it would acquire long-range precision weapons for the first time, as Russia would pose a threat “for years to come”.
Defence ministers from about 10 European Union countries agreed on Friday to make a so-called “drone wall” a priority for the bloc.
EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said Europe needs to learn from Ukraine and swiftly build anti-drone defences.
“We need to move fast,” Kubilius told AFP news agency in an interview. “And we need to move, taking all the lessons from Ukraine and making this drone wall together with Ukraine.”
Copenhagen will host an EU summit gathering heads of government on Wednesday and Thursday. It said on Friday it had accepted Sweden’s offer of its anti-drone technology to ensure the meeting could go ahead without disruption. (AlJazeera)
Director Denis Villeneuve is on the hunt for a potentially unknown actor to play James Bond next year, according to a new report.
On Wednesday, Sept. 24, Deadline reported that Dune filmmaker Villeneuve, 57, will begin a casting search for the next 007 after he finalizes production on Dune: Part Three with Timothée Chalamet. The outlet reported that Villeneuve and the producers behind the next iteration of the Bond franchise are looking for a “fresh face” to portray the iconic British spy, citing sources.
As Deadline reported, the next Bond will be male and portrayed by an actor from the United Kingdom, ruling out any recent rumors that American actors have been in consideration for the part. Its sources said Villeneueve’s approach is to cast “an unknown,” potentially in his late 20s or early 30s, which remains in line with what the series’ former producer Barbara Broccoli said as recently as November 2024, before she exited the franchise and handed full control over to Amazon MGM Studios in February.
“Whoever it is, has to look like he could kill you with his bare hands in a trice. From the moment you see him, that has to be readily apparent,” a source told Deadline. The outlet also reported that screenwriter Steven Knight, who is writing the next Bond movie, may be approaching the story by going back to Bond’s origins as a British naval officer before his time at MI6, though the outlet noted that the script is still being written.
“Every name you’ve heard of, and many you’ve never heard of,” one source told the outlet. “We’ve been flooded. But understand that the casting process has not begun and it won’t until Denis finishes the Dune movie.”
Villeneuve was announced as the next Bond director back in June; the filmmaker described the franchise as “sacred territory” in a statement at the time. “I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come. This is a massive responsibility, but also, incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor,” he added, in part.
Screenwriter Knight, who is best known for creating the British crime series Peaky Blinders, said in an August BBC Radio interview that he intends to “produce something that’s the same but different and better and stronger and bolder” with the next movie’s script. Knight, 65, said that casting for the lead part remains a “very good question and one I can’t give you the answer to” at that time.
Deadline reported that the next Bond movie currently plans to release in 2028 and film in 2027. Dune: Part Three, Villeneuve’s next movie, is expected to hit theaters Dec. 18, 2026. (People)
Hollywood has long viewed anime as a modest but steady genre at the domestic box office. But the unexpected success of “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” has forced the industry to rethink the potential of Japanese animation to draw big audiences to theaters.
“Infinity Castle,” distributed by Sony-owned Crunchyroll, fell 76% from its opening weekend, but still finished No. 1 at the box office, raking in $17.3 million Friday through Sunday and bringing its total earnings to $104.73 million after nine days in US theaters.
An anime film vastly outperforming expectations has been a long time coming. There havebeen more than 100 anime movies released since 2000, yet none have reached $50 million at the domestic box office. A poll released in January 2024 from Vox Media and Polygon showed that 42% of Gen Z say they watch anime weekly.
In the case of “Infinity Castle,” it has helped that the latest installment from the popular “Demon Slayer” franchise has drawn acclaim from critics, receiving a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 69 rating on Metacritic.
“I think studio heads and movie theaters should be very happy that, if this becomes a trend rather than an anomaly, it will add another category of film to the quiver of potential content to put on the big screen,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.
The sustained attention “Infinity Castle” has received from Gen Z and Gen Alpha has been a key driver for not just the movie but for the anime genre, and provided Sony and Crunchyroll with the surprise hit of September.
Dergarabedian said it’s “somewhat unprecedented” for an international anime movie to perform so well domestically.
Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of analytics firm Box Office Theory, said the movie’s buzz coming from younger moviegoers “can be a double-edged sword” because the interest can die off quickly or it can gain momentum by adding new audiences, reminiscent of the expectation-shattering run that Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” had this year when it pulled in $162.75 million in its opening weekend, and finished with $424 million.
Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of CNN.
The record-breaking opening weekend of “Infinity Castle” may have broadened the realm of anime to US moviegoers who otherwise wouldn’t have considered watching a “Demon Slayer” movie,said Robbins.
“That can really inspire people to go and check out something that they might not have heard of otherwise,” Robbins said, adding that the movie brought out “virtually all corners of the anime world,” including viewers with a passing interest.
On Friday, “Infinity Castle” became the highest-earning anime movie domestically, surpassing another record previously held by Warner Bros. 1999 hit, “Pokémon: The First Movie — Mewtwo Strikes Back” ($85 million). (CNN)
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in jail after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy in a case related to millions of euros of illicit funds from the late Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.
The Paris criminal court acquitted him of all other charges, including passive corruption and illegal campaign financing.
The ruling means he will spend time in jail even if he launches an appeal, which Sarkozy says he intends to do.
Speaking after Thursday’s hearing, the 70-year-old, who was president from 2007-12, said the verdict was “extremely serious for rule of law”.
Sarkozy, who claims the case is politically motivated, was accused of using the funds from Gaddafi to finance his 2007 election campaign.
In exchange, the prosecution alleged Sarkozy promised to help Gaddafi combat his reputation as a pariah with Western countries.
Judge Nathalie Gavarino said Sarkozy had allowed close aides to contact Libyan officials with a view to obtaining financial support for his campaign.
But the court ruled that there was not enough evidence to find Sarkozy was the beneficiary of the illegal campaign financing.
He was also ordered to pay a fine of €100,000 ($117,000, £87,000).
There was a shocked intake of breath in court when the judge read out her sentence.
Sarkozy could be sent to prison in Paris in the coming days – a first for a former French president and a humiliating blow for a man who has always protested his innocence in this trial and the other legal cases against him.
“What happened today… is of extreme gravity in regard to the rule of law, and for the trust one can have in the justice system,” Sarkozy said outside the court building.
“If they absolutely want me to sleep in jail, I will sleep in jail, but with my head held high,” he said.
The investigation was opened in 2013, two years after Saif al-Islam, son of the then-Libyan leader, first accused Sarkozy of taking millions of his father’s money for campaign funding.
The following year, Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine – who for a long time acted as a middleman between France and the Middle East – said he had written proof that Sarkozy’s campaign bid was “abundantly” financed by Tripoli, and that the €50m (£43m) worth of payments continued after he became president.
Among the others accused in the trial were former interior ministers, Claude Gueant and Brice Hortefeux. The court found Gueant guilty of corruption, among other charges, and Hortefeux was found guilty of criminal conspiracy.
Sarkozy’s wife, Italian-born former supermodel and singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was charged last year with hiding evidence linked to the Gaddafi case and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud, both of which she denies.
Since losing his re-election bid in 2012, Sarkozy has been targeted by several criminal investigations.
He also appealed against a February 2024 ruling which found him guilty of overspending on his 2012 re-election campaign, then hiring a PR firm to cover it up. He was handed a one-year sentence, of which six months were suspended.
In 2021, he was found guilty of trying to bribe a judge in 2014 and became the first former French president to get a custodial sentence. In December, the Paris appeals court ruled that he could serve his time at home wearing a tag instead of going to jail. (BBC)
Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has formally presented the staff and certificate of office to Oba Rashidi Ladoja, officially confirming him as the 44th Olubadan of Ibadanland.
The presentation took place at exactly 3:05 p.m. on Friday during a colourful and historic coronation ceremony held at Mapo Hall, Ibadan.
The coronation, held at Mapo Hall, was attended by notable dignitaries, including President Bola Tinubu, further highlighting the cultural and political importance of the event.
Makinde’s formal presentation of the staff and certificate of office marks the final step in legitimising Ladoja’s ascension to the throne, symbolising both tradition and continuity in Ibadan’s monarchy.
This coronation is especially notable as it brings a former state governor into a revered royal role, merging political experience with traditional leadership at a time when community influence and governance are increasingly intertwined.
Makinde, while speaking, said, “This is a momentous occasion in the presence of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the presence of people, and in the presence of God.
“In exercise of the power conferred on me as the Governor, I hereby present the staff of office to Oba, His Imperial Majesty, Senator, Governor, Engineer, my Baba, His Imperial Majesty, Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, Arusa 1st.
“This is in confirmation as the 44th Olubadan of Ibadanland. I am so present.” (Punch)
President Bola Tinubu has described Nigeria’s traditional institutions as sacred custodians of history and vital pillars of national unity.
Speaking on Friday at the coronation of His Imperial Majesty, Oba Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja, Arusa I, as the 44th Olubadan of Ibadanland, the President said the role of monarchs goes beyond cultural symbolism.
He stressed that they embody the resilience of the people and serve as a bridge between heritage and the future.
“Our traditional institutions are the sacred custodians of our varied history and play a crucial role in social cohesion. They embody the resilience of our people and stand as a bridge between our proud heritage and the promise of our shared future,” Tinubu said in a post via his official X handle.
He congratulated Oba Ladoja on his historic ascension to the throne of his forefathers, describing it as a reward for perseverance, resilience, and service to community.
“I congratulate Kabiyesi on this historic ascension to the throne and pray for his reign to be long, prosperous, and impactful,” the President added.
Tinubu also linked the occasion to his administration’s broader vision, assuring Nigerians that despite the difficulties of ongoing reforms, the country is on the path to stability.
“As we honour our traditions, we also reaffirm our commitment to building a stronger economy and a more secure, united, and hopeful Nigeria. The journey of reform has not been without its tests, but together we have turned the corner, and there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
The President prayed that Oba Ladoja’s reign would bring peace, progress, and pride to Ibadanland, Oyo State, and Nigeria as a whole. (Punch)
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