Nigerian senator suspended after making sexual harassment claims

Yahoo06-03-2025

Nigerian lawmakers have suspended a senator for six months, a day after she submitted a petition alleging she had been sexually harassed by the senate president.
Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan last Friday made the accusations against one of the country's top politicians, Godswill Akpabio.
After dismissing her petition on procedural grounds, the ethics committee recommended Uduaghan's suspension, saying she had brought ridicule to the chamber.
Some senators argued that her suspension be cut to three months but a majority voted to stick with the six months suspension recommended by the ethics committee.
Nearly a week since Uduaghan's interview with Arise TV where she first made the accusations, the issue has dominated discussions across Nigeria.
Many highly placed people and groups have called for a transparent investigation.
On Wednesday, two groups of protesters gathered at the assembly ground in the capital, Abuja - one backing Akpabio and the other in support of his colleague, chanting ''Akpabio must go.''
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Russia loses 960 soldiers and 2 aircraft over past day

Yahoo

an hour ago

Yahoo

Russia loses 960 soldiers and 2 aircraft over past day

Russia has lost 960 soldiers, two fixed-wing aircraft and 48 artillery systems over the past day. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 10 June 2025 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]: approximately 998,080 (+960) military personnel; 10,919 (+4) tanks; 22,768 (+9) armoured combat vehicles; 28,982 (+48) artillery systems; 1,412 (+1) multiple-launch rocket systems; 1,183 (+0) air defence systems; 416 (+2) fixed-wing aircraft; 337 (+0) helicopters; 40,057 (+239) operational-tactical UAVs; 3,330 (+15) cruise missiles; 28 (+0) ships/boats; 1 (+0) submarine; 51,455 (+107) vehicles and fuel tankers; 3,912 (+1) special vehicles and other equipment. The data is being confirmed. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!

Dear Black Folks: The Protests Against ICE Are Absolutely Our Fight Too [Op-Ed]

Black America Web

an hour ago

Black America Web

Dear Black Folks: The Protests Against ICE Are Absolutely Our Fight Too [Op-Ed]

Source: Nick Ut / Getty As Donald Trump sparks chaos by illegally deploying troops to Los Angeles, as immigration raids intensify, and as protesters are flooding the streets to demand dignity for migrants, far too many Black folks are sitting back on social media platforms singing a tired, familiar song. It's being sung off-key with a false sense of safety and a dangerous misunderstanding of how white supremacist violence works. The chorus of retreat sounds something like this: 'Black folks need to stay home.' 'Let them handle it. This is their fight.' 'Most Latinos voted for this mess.' 'ICE don't target us. We've got citizenship.' 'I ain't marching for nobody who won't march for me .' 'Latinos don't like us anyway.' But what's really being said underneath all that deflection is this: 'If they come for Latinos, I'll be quiet, as long as they leave me and mine alone.' But if you study history, I mean really study history, then you should already know that they never leave us alone. Not for long. I get it. Black folks are tired. We've carried the weight of every major freedom movement in this country. We've bled. We've died. And we've been betrayed. We've shown up, over and over, only to be met with anti-blackness in return. But this ain't about who likes us. It's about who's next! What ICE is doing to migrants isn't just an immigration issue. It's white supremacist violence at its core. It's separating families. It's state violence. It's stalking and snatching people from homes and workplaces and making them disappear. It's caging children. And for Black folks in America, this should all feel deeply familiar. The white supremacist machine of state violence doesn't make distinctions based on citizenship status. What ICE is doing to Latinx, West Indian, and African migrants is part of the same machinery that has policed and abused Black American bodies for centuries. We know what it means to have our families torn about by the state. We know what it means to be told that we don't belong in the land we built. We know exactly what it's like to be criminalized simply for existing, to be dehumanized by everyday language, media propaganda, policies, and bureaucrats in uniform. Black folks know what it means to live under surveillance, to be chased, cuffed, caged, and disappeared. We are the descendants of people who had to run. From plantations. From the Fugitive Slave Act and slave catchers. From the KKK and lynch mobs. Even if you were born right here in America, with ancestors going all the way back to slave ships, that border violence still echoes through Black lives. The ol' 'I got my papers, I'm safe' is a delusion. That little blue passport won't stop you from getting profiled, harassed, arrested, or shot by a cop who sees your Black skin before your citizenship status or hears your command of English. Just ask the countless Black immigrants already deported, or the U.S.-born Black folks ICE illegally detained anyway. Do you think that racist ICE agents caught up in immigration hysteria and round-up quotas will stop to check birth certificates? Just ask Peter Sean Brown, who was detained in the Florida Keys when an ICE agent mistakenly detained him as an undocumented immigrant from Jamaica. He spent weeks in custody and eventually sued. Or, ask Davino Watson, a native New Yorker who was imprisoned as a 'deportable alien' for more than three years despite claiming citizenship and then denied compensation by the court system. Source: Nick Ut / Getty ICE detentions are triggered by racial profiling, flawed algorithms, and sloppy data. Skin complexion, language, and citizenship won't shield us. Think about all the Black folks walking around without real IDs to prove they're citizens. Over a quarter of Black adult citizens do not have a driver's license with their current name and/or address and 18% don't have a license at all, according to the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. If ICE can mistakenly detain Black and Brown Americans born in the U.S., even if they have documentation, then no one is immune. Some Black folks are also citing the 2024 election exit polls to justify staying home and staying silent, like the ICE protests don't concern us. 'Latinos voted for Trump.' But exit polls don't tell the whole story. They only sample registered voters who actually voted, and they never account for the millions of undocumented immigrants who can't vote. They also oversample precincts that don't match the demographic reality, skewing results toward the dominant group in those districts. Most Latinos, like Black Americans, did not vote for Trump. According to national polls, 56% of Latinos who voted cast their ballot for Kamala Harris, while 42% went for Trump. Yes, Trump made gains among Latino men, but gains don't equate to dominance. The Latino vote split along familiar gender and generational lines, just like our communities. We can't turn a sampling of voter turnout into 'most Latinos voted for Trump,' and we can't let bad math be an excuse to justify apathy. And there's this one: 'I ain't marching for nobody that won't march for me.' Or its equally tired fraternal twin: 'Latinos don't like us anyway.' This is scarcity-minded, historically illiterate nonsense that treats solidarity as some sort of tit-for-tat transaction. If that's how our ancestors thought, then there wouldn't have been an Underground Railroad, no Civil Rights Act, A Voting Rights Act, or a Montgomery Bus Boycott. Solidarity is a strategy, not some popularity contest. If you're out here claiming Latinos don't march for us, then clearly you haven't picked up a history book. Y'all must not know about Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta who led the United Farm Workers who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. Y'all must not know about the Puerto Rican Young Lords working hand-in-hand with the Black Panther Party to run free clinics, breakfast programs, and tenant organizing drives in Chicago and New York City. Or, about the Mexican students who took their cue from SNCC and Malcolm X during the 1968 East LA walkouts and launched the Chicano civil rights crusade. In recent years, Afro-Latinos have been at the forefront of Black Lives Matter chapters, organizing vigils, raising bail funding, and pushing for police accountability across the country. In Chicago's Little Village, Latino organizers launched the 'Brown Squad for Black Lives' and established a Black and Brown Unity food pantry. Martin Luther King III has been working alongside Mi Familia Vota , a national Black-Brown coalition whose mission is to combat hate crimes, anti-immigrant policies, and attacks on voting rights— together —not as separate communities. Just because these sustained interracial commitments and coalitions aren't trendy headlines or going viral on social media doesn't mean solidarity isn't unfolding in schools, community centers, neighborhoods, and politics. It's one thing to let white folks battle each other, whether it's MAGA vs. neoliberal, liberals vs. conservatives, or Karens vs. Capitol Hill. White folks battling each other is the empire fighting over who gets to steer the ship while it is already sinking. You want to sit back and watch that unfold while sipping tea or eating popcorn? Fine. Letting white folks eat each other doesn't carry the same moral weight as turning your back on another marginalized community facing the same white supremacist violence as us. Let's also remember that anti-Blackness is global. It lives in every community, including our own. Black Americans can be just as anti-immigrant, just as colorist, just as xenophobic, just as colonized in our thinking. So, if you're sitting out because of what some Latinos, West Indians, or Africans said about us, then you're not protecting yourself. You're just waiting for your turn. So, what do we do? Source: Jason Armond / Getty We organize. We show up at ICE protests so the system doesn't get to isolate people in silence. We donate to immigrant bail funds and deportation defense teams like the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and UndocuBlack. Use your platforms to amplify the stories, organizing, resistance, and victories of undocumented folks. Build local coalitions to organize teach-ins, mutual aid drives and community safety networks that bridge Black and Brown neighborhoods. We also need to unlearn the anti-immigrant, anti-Black, and anti-Indigenous narratives this country feeds us because solidarity starts in the mind. Black folks cannot afford to pretend that citizenship or birthright assures our protection. A system built on racial profiling, quotas, and militarized tactics never stops at 'not us.' It doesn't send ICE to the border and leave us in peace. These immigration raids strengthen a culture of normalized, dehumanizing state violence against anyone who looks 'other.' Immigration will become the excuse to expand the surveillance state and militarized policing in Black communities. This is absolutely our fight! Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and author of 'Spare The Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America' and the forthcoming 'Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Children In Jim Crow America.' Read her Substack here . SEE ALSO: Trump's Job Corps 'Pause' Is MAGA's Plan To Eliminate Poor Youth Harvard And White America's Creepy Obsession With Hoarding Black Remains SEE ALSO Dear Black Folks: The Protests Against ICE Are Absolutely Our Fight Too [Op-Ed] was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE

Afghans in Northern Virginia react to first day of travel ban

Yahoo

2 hours ago

Yahoo

Afghans in Northern Virginia react to first day of travel ban

ALEXANDRIA, Va. () — Monday marks the first day of President Donald Trump's latest travel ban, which includes mostly African and Middle Eastern countries. Over the past few years, thousands of Afghan refugees have come to the D.C. area. Afghanistan is now on that travel ban list. Can you still visit the countries listed under Trump's travel ban? At the Afghan Market in Alexandria, people who spoke with DC News Now discussed a level of disappointment at the ban. 'We are disappointed about the travel ban, especially for those Afghan allies that they left behind,' said Farid Younsei, who lives in Virginia. Younsei said many in the Afghan community in Northern Virginia came to the U.S. during mass evacuations once the Taliban took over, but not all of their family members joined them. 'Most of them are in neighboring countries, like in Pakistan, and in Qatar, and in United Arab Emirates,' he said. Those family members left behind are the people on the minds of those who spoke about the travel ban. 'I kinda worry about them because one day, or maybe another day, they're going to figure it out about them — that they used to work with the embassy, or used to work with the government. And your life would be in danger. 100%,' Fertaos Bakhshi, of Alexandria, said. Trump's rationale for the travel ban is public safety. 'We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,' the president said in a video on social media. International students confused, anxious about their futures under second Trump term At the market in Alexandria, there's a feeling that the ban can harm those looking for a better and safer life. 'If you compare Afghanistan to United States, it means like you compare hell to paradise,' Bakhshi said. 'The bad and good, now the immigrants, they're getting mixed with each other. So it's kind of difficult to separate them.' The leader of a local organization supporting newly arriving Afghan refugees tells DC News Now it's important to note that the U.S. government is continuing to issue special immigrant visas and is allowing the recipients of the SIVs and their families to travel. However, they also expressed that one of the most significant concerns is that it takes away some of the different tools to help reunite families who have been separated during the initial evacuation, or later due to the visa process. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.