Brighton survived late penalty controversy to secure their first-ever victory at Aston Villa on Saturday.
Brighton’s 2-1 success ended a run of seven games without a win in all competitions, but it didn’t come easily for the Seagulls.
Graham Potter’s side, who had won only once in the league this term, took the lead through Danny Welbeck before Ezri Konsa’s equaliser for Villa.
Solly March put Brighton back in front, but Brighton defender Tariq Lamptey was sent off for a foul on Jack Grealish in stoppage-time.
Villa were controversially denied a penalty in the final seconds when Michael Oliver gave a spot-kick for March’s challenge on Trezeguet, only for the referee to change his mind after consulting the pitchside monitor.
In the 12th minute, Welbeck took Adam Lallana’s pass near the halfway line, sprinted away from the sluggish Villa defence and clipped a cool finish over Emiliano Martinez.
It was the 29-year-old’s first goal since July when the former Arsenal forward netted in his last game for Watford.
Fresh from his fine performances for England during the international break, Grealish was full of confidence and the Villa captain’s curling effort was well saved by Mat Ryan.
Ryan saved with his leg to keep out Tyrone Mings’ close-range effort, but a game full of chances finally featured a Villa goal in the 47th minute.
Bertrand Traore’s free-kick reached Konsa at the far post and the unmarked Villa defender slid in for a clinical finish.
March restored Brighton’s lead from Pascal Gross’s pass in the 56th minute, bending a superb strike into the top corner from the edge of the area.
Four persons were on Saturday crushed to death in an accident involving a DAF truck and a commercial bus around Capital Hotel on Ijebu Ode-Oru road.
Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, the Spokesperson, Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE), confirmed the incident to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abeokuta.
Akinbiyi explained that the accident which occurred around 1:15 p.m., was caused by excessive speeding and loss of control on the part of the DAF truck driver.
He said that six people were involved in the accident which comprised of three male adults and three female adults, saying that four persons died while two were injured.
He explained that the truck driver, due to excessive speeding lost control of the vehicle; left his lane and rammed into a bus loaded with Kolanut in the opposite direction.
“The bus was going to Ibadan from an unknown destination while the truck was heading toward Ijebu-Ode from Ibadan axis.
“All the passengers in the bus, including the driver and three women died on the spot,’’ Akinbiyi said.
The TRACE spokesman said that the deceased had been deposited at the morgue of Ijebu Ode General Hospital, while the injured truck driver and one other were taken to same hospital.
He said that the TRACE Corps Commander, Seni Ogunyemi, commiserated with the families of the dead victims.
He warned drivers of articulated vehicles against reckless and dangerous driving as well as excessive speeding because of its attendant consequences.
Police officers investigate the area at the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, on November 20, 2020. Multiple people were injured in a shooting at the US mall on November 20, according to local media, with victims rushed to hospital but no fatalities immediately reported. The FBI and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s office tweeted that their officers were on the scene at the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, supporting the “active” response by local police. KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP
Eight people were injured in a shooting at a US mall in Wisconsin on Friday, according to the Police, who said they were still hunting for the shooter.
The FBI and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s office tweeted that their officers were on the scene at the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, supporting the “active” response by local police.
“When emergency personnel arrived, the shooter was no longer at the scene,” the Wauwatosa Police Department said in a statement.
It said the wounded included seven adults and one teenager who had been rushed to hospital. The seriousness of their injuries was not immediately known, but Wauwatosa mayor Dennis McBride told ABC news their injuries were not life threatening.
The shooter was identified by police as a “white male in his 20s or 30s.”
Numerous workers at the mall took shelter inside the building as the shooter rampaged, according to videos circulating on social media.
Shopper Jill Wooley told a local news station she was inside with her 79-year-old mother when the gunfire erupted.
“I knew right away it was a gunshot and they just kept coming one right after the other,” Wooley told CBS affiliate WDJT. “We just dropped to the floor.”
“I think we’re all born with it,” she said. “We’ve all been exposed to public shootings like this. I think all of us have thought of what we would do in a situation like this.”
“We are disheartened and angered that our guests and tenants were subject to this violent incident today,” the company that operates the mall said in a statement.
“We are thankful for our partners at the Wauwatosa Police Department and we are cooperating with them as their investigation develops,” it added.
According to gross domestic product numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, the nation recorded a contraction of 3.62 percent in the third quarter of 2020.
The Cable reports that the world’s most populous black nation, Nigeria has officially slid into its worst economic recession in over three decades.
According to gross domestic product numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, the nation recorded a contraction of 3.62 percent in the third quarter of 2020.
This is the second consecutive quarterly GDP decline since the recession of 2016. The cumulative GDP for the first nine months of 2020, therefore, stood at -2.48 percent.
The last time Nigeria recorded such cumulative GDP was in 1987, when GDP declined by 10.8 percent.
According to World Bank and NBS figures monitored by The Cable, this is also the second recession under President Muhammadu Buhari’s democratic reign — and his fourth as head of state.
Overturning elections sounds like the stuff of secret deals in smoke-filled rooms, but President Donald Trump’s not even trying to hide his effort to subvert the results of the election as President-elect Joe Biden’s margin widens to more than six million votes.
President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on November 20, 2020 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump held his first press conference in over a week to make an announcement on prescription drug prices as he continues to challenge the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump’s efforts to deny Biden the White House traveled from the courts to state legislatures on Friday with Trump’s personal reception with Republican lawmakers from Michigan — and their counterparts in Pennsylvania may be next on the list.
But there were signs, even among Republicans, that Trump’s efforts need some evidence.
“As legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election,” Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield said in a joint statement after their meeting at the White House.
Importantly, they acknowledged there is no actual evidence of wrongdoing, a blow to a President and his allies who’ve been peddling baseless claims about fraud.
“Allegations of fraudulent behavior should be taken seriously, thoroughly investigated, and if proven, prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And the candidates who win the most votes win elections and Michigan’s electoral votes. These are simple truths that should provide confidence in our elections,” the Michigan lawmakers said.
Another blow for Trump came on Friday in Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the paperwork that officially grants the state’s 16 electoral votes to Biden. A federal judge on Thursday had rejected a last-ditch lawsuit that tried to block certification, and Biden’s victory was certified Friday afternoon by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican.
Other setbacks came in Nevada, where a district judge on Friday denied a request brought by a conservative activist to halt the certification next week of the state’s election results — which show Biden leading by more than 33,000 votes — and in Wisconsin, where elections officials in the Democratic stronghold of Dane County rejected requests from the Trump campaign to throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots on Friday as the state kicked off its partial presidential recount.
Testing out loopholes
To succeed, Trump would need to bulldoze the Electoral College system. But for all the angst he’s sparked about a coup, the President doesn’t seem to have a plan so much as a shameless sense of entitlement to the White House. What he’s doing is exploiting loopholes and prying at technicalities to see if any of them will give.
He’s clearly trying to generate the heat and noise he craves. But he’s also casting about for an unexpected opening, as he’s done so many times before.
Trump refused to take questions at the White House Friday at what he had falsely billed a “press conference,” where he discussed prescription drug prices and gave a business-as-usual veneer to the democratic subversion he’s orchestrating from the Oval Office and the raging pandemic he appears to be largely ignoring. The appearance came just as Covid hospitalizations and new daily cases hit a record again and news emerged that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has tested positive. Cases to continue to climb in Congress, too, with Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida — a staunch Trump ally — becoming the latest to test positive.
Trump, perhaps in a brief moment of reality, appeared to acknowledge his impending departure from the White House, implying that it will be up to the new administration to maintain the drug pricing rules he was announcing. But he quickly repeated during the same lie that he won the election, despite the results, and he promised, “We’ll find that out.”
What he meant was this: If he can delay certification, whether in Michigan or Pennsylvania or another Biden-won state with a Republican-run legislature, then he can maybe lean on lawmakers to appoint pro-Trump slates of presidential electors.
That’s why Trump met with the Michigan GOP lawmakers on Friday. He’d need to turn them and a majority of the Michigan statehouse into accomplices if his effort is to succeed, after previous legal attempts all failed. Trump’s top campaign attorneys — Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis — did not attend the meeting after Giuliani’s son, who works at the White House, tested positive for Covid-19. Also not in attendance: Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, who is from Michigan.
But Michigan’s just the first part of Trump’s puzzle. Biden has 306 of the 538 available electoral votes, which means Trump would need to find a way to claw back 37 to bring Biden under the 270 normally needed to win. So he’d need to poach votes in at least three states where a majority of voters said Biden should be President.
The clear focus by the White House is on Michigan (16 electoral votes), Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) and Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes).
Overturning the results of one state’s election would be brazen and horrible enough. Overturning three would be a macabre triple Lindy.
That doesn’t mean Trump won’t try. Two sources tell CNN there are discussions currently underway with the President about inviting Republican state legislators from Pennsylvania to the White House. It’s not clear if those invitations have been extended yet, but Trump has expressed interest in doing so as he tries to insert himself into the vote certification process.
The election certification deadline for both Michigan and Pennsylvania is Monday, so the plotting will have to move into overdrive if it’s to be anything more than a delusional sideshow.
One state is off the map, though, with Georgia’s Republican governor certifying the election resultsafter his Republican secretary of state formalized the fact that Biden won, very narrowly. Every small normally procedural step is under scrutiny during this strange time, and these Republicans were true to the democratic result.
Legal experts have made clear that it would be incredibly difficult for Trump to hack any path from his current deficit to a second term.
For starters, they’ve pointed out that if Trump can get electoral votes thrown out or contested so that they’re not approved in Congress, it changes the 270 threshold and doesn’t necessarily gain Trump ground.
As Michael Morley, a professor of election law at Florida State University and a member of National Task Force on Election Crises, said, “In short, under any remotely plausible scenario, the election will be settled in the Electoral College without triggering a contingent election in the House.”
Read the fine print
As his effort to stay in the White House becomes more frantic, Trump’s continuing to ask for more money.
But as CNN’s Fredeka Schouten notes, donors need to read the fine print of the solicitation, in which Trump’s political team says it has upped to 75% the share of the money that goes to Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America. It had been a 60% cut last week.
This money is not primarily geared at Trump’s legal efforts, but rather could fund Trump’s post-presidential political efforts.
That Trump’s adviser and aides are tacitly eyeing what comes next is not news, but the extent of his efforts to gum things up and make things more difficult for Biden continues to become clear.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for instance, is defending a decision to claw back billions the government had given the Federal Reserve to help American small businesses. It’s a program more easily ended than spun back up. And while the move certainly creates political headaches for Biden, it’ll also have a negative impact on everyday Americans still living in a pandemic.
Biden moves forward with his Cabinet
Even if Trump continues to block a formal transition, Biden is carrying forward with his own preparations to take office. On Friday, his 78th birthday, he met in Wilmington, Delaware, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.
What they’ll be able to accomplish on Capitol Hill and who Biden will be able to place in his Cabinet depends very much on who wins the twin Senate runoffs in Georgia on January 5, the day before Electoral College votes are counted on Capitol Hill.
Biden said he’s already selected his Treasury secretary, but will make the announcement in the coming week.
As Trump’s agitating leads him to darker, more dangerous places, the former vice president’s mandate has only grown. He had won nearly 80 million votes, as of Friday evening, which is more votes than any US presidential candidate in history by a considerable margin. Trump has received nearly 74 million votes.
While most of GOP leadership continues to back Trump’s efforts to contest those results, a growing number of veteran Republicans pushed back on Trump’s tactics and expressed frustration about the transition being held up.
“If there is any chance whatsoever that Joe Biden will be the next president, and it looks like he has a very good chance, the Trump administration should provide the Biden team with all transition materials, resources, and meetings necessary to ensure a smooth transition so that both sides are ready on day one,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman, who’s retiring at the end of this year.
“That especially should be true, for example, on vaccine distribution,” he added in his statement.
“I think that it’s time to move on,” 12-term Rep. Kay Granger of Texas said Friday when asked about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results.
“I think it’s time for him to really realize and be very clear about what’s going on.”
Cybercriminals targeted Manchester United’s IT systems in a “sophisticated” hacking operation, the club said.
“The club has taken swift action to contain the attack and is currently working with expert advisers to investigate the incident and minimise the ongoing IT disruption,” it said in a statement late Friday.
All “critical systems” required for games to take place at Old Trafford were secure, the statement said, adding Saturday’s game against West Bromwich Albion would go ahead as planned.
“We are not currently aware of any breach of personal data associated with our fans and customers,” it added.
“These type of attacks are becoming more and more common and are something you have to rehearse for,” a spokesman for the club told the PA news agency.
United are languishing in 14th in the Premier League table and a fine start to their Champions League campaign took a knock with a 2-1 defeat to Istanbul Basaksehir.
Gunmen have killed former Rivers State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Ebenezer Kalabo Amah, the state police have confirmed.
Amah was kidnapped by the gunmen and killed shortly afterwards.
Spokesperson for the police in the state, Nnamdi Omoni, who confirmed the incident, said the deceased’s vehicle was recovered the same day while his body was seen at Peter Odili Road on Thursday, a report by PUNCH said.
Omoni said, “Yes I can confirm. He was kidnapped in Woji on the 17th. That same day, the police recovered his vehicle. While we were searching for him, we got information that his body was dumped somewhere at Peter Odili Road.
“So the following day on the 18th, we got there and confirmed that he was the same person that was kidnapped the previous day. His body was evacuated and taken to the hospital mortuary for preservation.
“The vehicle is in our custody. The investigation has commenced into the incident to ensure that the suspects behind the dastardly act are apprehended.”
Deputy National Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Chika Onuegbu, while commenting said, “ETK Amah was a very good comrade who radiated joy everywhere he went. So sad. May his soul rest in peace.”
Amah was kidnapped by gunmen, who trailed him to his residence along Precious Chukwu Street in Woji, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state, while he was driving into his house on Wednesday night.
Veteran musician, Charles Oputa, aka Charly Oputa, and his daughter, Dewy, apparently don’t see eye-to-eye on certain issues.
On Friday, the ‘Fake Pastor’ singer took to his Instagram page to state that he experienced a wide range of emotions when Dewy first came out to him that she was homosexual. He stated that though he often advocated for the rights of ‘queer’ people, he was initially taken aback.
He went on to say that he finally came to terms with it and is proud of his daughter. His post read in part, “As a matter of fact, I now look back and find that I am grateful for the experience of having a gay (lesbian) child. All I want for my princess are love, happiness and success.
Charly Boy’s post generated a lot of comments, with many commending him for loving his daughter unconditionally.
However, hours after his post, his daughter called him out on Twitter, claiming that her father no longer picked her calls. She wrote, “’Gaslighting’ at its finest. It is quite unfortunate that my life is nothing but content. I just cannot wrap my head around the hypocrisy. All this for a drop of clout, attention and praise from strangers just to feed your ego.
“Honestly, I was going to just ‘free’ this situation because I’m used to this toxicity and mentally I’m tired. But after seeing this, I cannot stomach this pretentious behaviour anymore because normally, this man does not pick my calls.”
She continued, “In 2017, I got kicked out of the house and was almost homeless. But for my friend, I wouldn’t have had food or shelter.
“Fortunately for me, I had a return ticket to Atlanta (United States of America), I moved back here with zero dollars not even knowing where I was going to live or where my next meal was going to come from.
“I was literally living from couch to couch and Lord knows how tirelessly I worked so I could have my own stability.
“You did not even know if your daughter was dead or alive. Anything could have happened to me.”
Efforts made to speak with Charly Boy proved abortive. He did not respond to calls made to his phone.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged President Muhammadu Buhari to set up an independent national truth commission on the reported killing of peaceful protesters by security agencies and alleged recruiting of hoodlums by agents of government to disrupt the demonstration by Nigerian youths against Police brutality in the country.
The PDP faulted the idea of pushing the responsibility of enquiry to the states, despite widespread allegations of involvement of federal government interests in the crime against humanity in Nigeria.
Its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiya, in a statement, said PDP’s call was predicated on the failure of the administration to come clean on the involvement of the military in the Lekki Toll Gate shooting and recruiting of hoodlums to attack peaceful protesters in Abuja and other parts of the country.
Accordingly to the party: “Nigerians remain alarmed by the contradicting claims by government on the Lekki killing. It is recalled that in its first reaction, the military denied deploying troops to Lekki Toll Gate.
“This denial was followed by a strange claim by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who pointed accusing fingers to faceless hoodlums in military uniform as being responsible for the killing, only for the military to later inform the Lagos enquiry panel that the military was invited to the Lekki Toll Gate by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
“In the same vein, Nigerians are disturbed by the contradicting claims by Sanwo-Olu, who earlier asserted that there was no causality at Lekki Toll Gate, only for him to admit afterwards that one person died and later changed his figure to two.”
The PDP also expressed disappointment that the Federal Government has failed to make any clarifications on the viral video showing armed hoodlum being brought in vehicles belonging to security agencies and openly coordinated to unleash violence on unarmed and peaceful protesters in Abuja and other parts of the country, noting: “The global community has been in distress over graphic videos of the night shooting at Lekki Toll Gate and the gory pictures of Nigerians killed while waving our nation’s flag and singing the national anthem in protest against Police brutality and myriads of injustices under the administration.”
The opposition party noted that Nigerians are yet to be told who ordered the deployment of the soldiers to toll gate and how Police vehicles were used to bring in armed thugs to attack and kill protesters in Abuja.
After weeks of negotiations and foot-dragging, the Federal Government on Friday accepted the demand by the Academic Staff Union of Universities that they be exempted from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.
The government also shifted grounds on a number of issues, including the insistence that all the academic staff of the federal universities must be paid through the IPPIS platform.
Reading out the communique at the end of a seven-hour negotiation with ASUU members in Abuja, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said the government also agreed to ASUU’s demand to pay their members’ salary arrears from February to June through the old salary payment platform, Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System.
The government also offered to raise the Earned Allowances to university staff from N30bn to N35bn and the revitalization fund from N20bn to N25bn.
The breakthrough in negotiations is expected to end the eight-month strike embarked on by the university lecturers.
![Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 20: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on November 20, 2020 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump held his first press conference in over a week to make an announcement on prescription drug prices as he continues to challenge the results of the 2020 Presidential election. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)]({"default":{"load":"default","w":"80","h":"45","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1bdCaD.img?h=450&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=456&y=248"},"size3column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"35","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1bdCaD.img?h=352&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=456&y=248"},"size2column":{"load":"default","w":"62","h":"35","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1bdCaD.img?h=352&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=456&y=248"}})
