Police say 20 abducted Nigerian medical students freed
The students were on their way to a convention in Benue State when they were kidnapped by gunmen. Twenty Nigerian medical students who were kidnapped on their way to a convention have been freed more than a week after their abduction, police said. Gunmen seized the students on August 15 as they travelled to a conference in Benue State, in the centre of the country, and later demanded a ransom. “We confirm the release on Friday of our brothers and sisters and some other Nigerians who have been in captivity in Ntunkon forest, Benue State,” Nigerian police spokesman Olumuyiwa Adejobi said on Saturday. State police said in a statement that they had “confirmed the release of the 20 students from the University of Maiduguri and University of Jos”. The students were freed “without any ransom paid”. The group was “rescued tactically and professionally”, according to Adejobi. The country’s police chief had this week deployed a “tactical squad” in Benue State as part of efforts to find the latest victims of a rising wave of abductions in Africa’s most populous country. Fortune Olaye, secretary-general of the Nigerian Medical Students’ Association (NIMSA), also confirmed the release to the AFP news agency. “We’ve spoken to them on the phone. They are safe,” Olaye said. The students were abducted while on the road in a convoy of two buses near the town of Otukpo, less than 150km (93 miles) from Enugu, which often witnesses attacks and kidnappings. Armed gangs have been kidnapping villagers, students and motorists for ransom in northern Nigeria, with security forces unable to end the practice. Thousands of people are abducted for ransom in Nigeria each year, though there are few reliable statistics as many cases are not reported. Cases of kidnapping have increased significantly due to a severe economic crisis which is pushing more people towards crime. The Nigerian consultancy, SBM Intelligence, said it had recorded 4,777 kidnappings in the country between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu taking power in May 2023 and January 2024. Adblock test (Why?)
Black freedom has never been on the ballot
I almost wish someone would ask us: how does it feel to be a pit stop? To be a refuelling station where sputtering-out political campaigns pull up to receive a laying on of hands; where a Black baritone reverend holds the president’s shoulder and between benedictions issues forth some version of the declaration that “We know Joe”? And that president passes the torch to a Black candidate who can siphon Black popular culture and sponge down a government busy giving standing ovations to the Butcher of Gaza. I almost wish someone would ask before the politicians slip off their oxfords: how does it feel to know that they are only here for the night? To know (what is by now an open secret) that although they promise that we are in this together they have only stopped by to use us. To make us promises and then dart off to fundraising dinners before we can whisper, “Hush now, don’t explain.” Is it not time, now, to refuse to be ping-ponged between those who stand with genocidaires and those who dream of a day of retribution for our surviving them? Can we not saddle up and build a world away from those who dance to our music in the clubs but turn us away at the entrance? Who shoot us when we call for help and circulate minstrel memes of our killed as if they were digital lynching postcards? Why resign ourselves to wait for the enlightenment of evil? To be mules beaten from four years to four years, promised this time really “change is gonna come” as the Earth shrivels, Nazis are inspired, and presidential candidates openly challenge one another to golf. This time will not be different. It is either victory for the lynch mob who marched on the Capitol building with nooses and Confederate battle flags, or those who ask us to look past the slurs they spit at us to “what we have in common”. It is a battle between those who celebrate the reimposition of castration as punishment in a carceral system that disproportionately arrests and sentences Black people and those who are proud to “prosecute the case”. It will be “triumph of the will” or “Be quiet about the genocide. I’m speaking.” The US has proven itself to be a state where a leftist Black candidate who is not accountable, first and foremost, to white liberals is unelectable. The daring few who speak up against ethnic cleansing abroad are cane-hooked from the stage by Super PACs. As for the rest, if they pay lip service to our liberation, it is openly confessed by their surrogates that this is a trick to gain our support and that they will eventually “pivot” to the centre. That is, after teasing freedom they will move closer to the people who ridicule “wokeness” – ie Black conscious scepticism about the good intentions of the settler-colony – and who prefer the more sober soap box proselytising about the deep state and secret, globalist, Jewish conspiracies in their fake Viking helmets. US electoral politics remain hostile to Black liberation. While racists bask in the likely return of a president who promises to be their “retribution”, no Black candidate can win if they utter a word about reparations for slavery, or agree that Black Lives Matter, or make statements seen as sympathetic to the Defund the Police movement. Criticising the inflated budgets of institutions that hire and protect the men and women who shoot us in our nightgowns and leave us to die on our kitchen floors when we call them for help is toxic in a US political campaign. Yet we are asked to be excited. Thrilled about representation and Black “ascendancy” into the degeneracy of colonial office. Happy for Eric Adams despite his fight to keep solitary confinement in prisons. For Barack Obama despite his imperialist wars. Kamala Harris despite her perp-walking parents of “truant” children. Cornel West despite his love will find a way. Tim Scott. Should such a system that punishes any agenda for Black freedom be rewarded with Black energy? Should we still accept as wise the maxim that “progress is slow” when Nazism makes gains overnight? Should we accept to stand by the door, cap in hand, as they speed by in their motorcades? To be lectured, again, about pragmatism? To be told that we must place our hope in a society where one cannot win an election without appealing to racists? Vote if you must, why not? But this time, when we close the voting booth’s curtain, perhaps we should pivot as well. And turn our backs on a system that still sees our liberation as a liability. Reorient our political identity towards the rising Black anticolonial internationalism that does not, after promising to fight racism, shift to winning over racists. That seeks not to “make our voices against lynching heard” but to make those who would lynch hesitate. We must push past the merry-go-round of leaders that say every four years “This is our time” then “We must wait more”. We must pour that snake oil out onto the road. No more waiting on the messiah Democrat politician. None seeks to be our “retribution”. Patience has only led us to the gate of lynch mob rule. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
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‘Nail in the coffin’: Grocer turned House lawmaker trashes Kamala Harris’ price control plan
A first-term House Republican who runs a small chain of grocery stores in Ohio is worried Vice President Kamala Harris’ grocery price control proposal would hurt family-owned businesses like his. “We’re dealing with a lot. The net profit in grocery stores is about one and a half — if you’re doing really good, one and three quarters. Just in layman’s terms, it’s about a $1.50 for every $100 that you go through the registers. And what we’ve seen in the last three to four years has been pretty horrific,” Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “This will be a nail in the coffin of this industry that no one can imagine.” ECONOMIC COMMENTATOR WARNS HARRIS’ PRICE CONTROL PLAN ALREADY TRIED IN ‘VENEZUELA, ARGENTINA, SOVIET UNION’ Rulli won a special election in June to succeed retired Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio. Before that, he was a Republican state senator and helped run Rulli Bros., the mid-sized grocery chain his father started in 1917. To explain what effect he argues price controls will have on his business, Rulli held up a bottle of Tide laundry detergent made by Procter & Gamble. “If the Harris administration tells Procter & Gamble, which is based in Cincinnati, that this Tide right here that I’m selling today for $4.99 has to stay $4.99 for the next four years, what will happen is that Procter & Gamble will just simply choose not to make this product,” Rulli said. “And so that’s going to happen a lot.” DAVE RAMSEY EXPLAINS WHY KAMALA HARRIS’ PRICE CONTROL PLAN WILL NOT CURB INFLATION: ‘IT’S NOT SUSTAINABLE’ He pointed to the bar code, known as the stock keeping unit (SKU), denoting the individual product and said his stores, for example, carry items with 38,000 different bar codes, whereas larger grocery chains carry more. “Well, why would that matter to your viewers? It’s going to matter to your viewers, because this is the luxury of living in the United States of America, where the average blue-collar worker, Joe Bag of Donuts, would have an opportunity to buy some nice things in life,” Rulli said. “What will happen in four years of a Harris administration is those 38,000 SKUs will go all the way down to 5,000 SKUs, and you will be living in Cuba or Venezuela.” It comes as Harris begins rolling out her presidential platform with roughly three months until the election in November. Part of that is a pledge to enact the first-ever ban on food “price gouging,” which critics on the right have argued would stifle economic growth in the same style as authoritarian governments like the former Soviet Union and Venezuela. Harris’ allies have pointed out that large food manufacturing companies have made record profits in recent years — Hershey has seen a 62% jump in net profits between 2019 and 2023, while companies like General Mills and Kraft Heinz both saw 48% growth, according to The Wall Street Journal. But groups like the National Grocers Association have called the plan “a solution in search of a problem.” ‘BAR RESCUE’S’ JON TAFFER SHREDS KAMALA HARRIS’ PRICE CONTROL PROPOSAL: ‘IT’S A NIGHTMARE’ “Our independent grocers, already operating on extremely thin margins, are hurting from the same inflationary pressure points as their customers,” the group said earlier this month. When Harris unveiled the plan in North Carolina, she pledged to “make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers.” But Rulli argued it would hurt small and mid-sized grocers, as well. “Many of these smaller and independent grocery stores will go out of business. You’ve already seen it happening gradually over the last 20 or 30 years, but I would say just recently within the 80-mile circumference I’m sitting in right now, there’s been five grocery stores that have gone out of business in the last two years,” he said. Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
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Chicago schools slammed for delayed calendar, encouraging student attendance at DNC
Chicago’s school district is facing criticism for delaying the academic year start by a week — with detractors arguing that it’s a politically motivated move. Students were regularly scheduled to return to school on Monday. The School Year 2025 (SY25) calendar published by the district depicted 176 full-student-attendance days, beginning Monday and ending June 12, 2025. In its reasoning for the delay, the district cited the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and its estimated 75,000 visitors drawn to the city. The school district said that the respite will allow students the time to “attend, volunteer, and participate in the civic process of hosting the convention.” That highlight irked several education experts and lawmakers, who also pointed out American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union boss Randi Weingarten was a featured keynote speaker during a Monday panel by the DNC Climate Council. RANDI WEINGARTEN ‘AMONG THE MOST DANGEROUS PEOPLE’ IN US, MIKE POMPEO CLAIMS “Join us for an electric meeting with Biden-Harris climate wins, new polling data, panels and presentations!” the advertisement for the breakout session read. Doug Mayer, spokesman for the Public Labor Unions Accountability Committee, said Thursday that the Chicago district’s decision to delay the school year for the DNC is a “clear example of what happens when the Public Sector Unions gain too much power.” “Instead of prioritizing students’ education, decisions are driven by political agendas,” Mayer said. “This overreach harms our kids and underscores the dangers of allowing unions to dictate what’s best for our students.” CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION URGES STUDENTS TO ATTEND POLITICAL RALLY FOR ILLINOIS PRIMARY Critics also highlighted education-related claims being made from the DNC dais itself. House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina was lambasted on X for claiming, “Thanks to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we reopened our schools.” Mayer’s group went further, publishing a new TV spot called “teacher’s pets” that labeled the Democratic ticket “champions” for the teachers unions’ agenda and “shutting kids out of school” during the pandemic. TEACHERS UNIONS NEED AUDITS AS WEINGARTEN STUMPS WITH WHITMER AND STUDENT FAIL: SCHWEIZER Rep. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican who represents the western exurbs of Chicago, said the city and teachers unions are placing their political interests above students. That, he added, further makes the case for more school choice programs in the Land of Lincoln and nationwide. “The hypocrisy of Chicago politicians and the teachers unions to keep students out of class to appease their friends at the DNC is astounding,” LaHood said. “Illinois students still lag behind because of Gov. JB Pritzker’s COVID lockdowns in 2020.” The governor characterized such restrictions as protecting students and the public. The American Federation for Children’s Corey DeAngelis, who focuses on school choice and education issues, slammed the Windy City’s district over the situation: “Chicago Democrats, owned by the control freaks at the teachers unions, continue allowing kids to be denied an education. They always put politics before the needs of children and their families,” said DeAngelis, who also works with the Cato Institute. DeAngelis argued that the delayed calendar, coupled with suggestions that children be drawn into partisan politicking at the DNC, is why school choice is such an important issue. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Parents should be able to take their children’s education dollars to schools that actually care about them. Only then will the school system have an incentive to do the right thing and cater to the needs of families as opposed to the other way around,” he said. A source familiar with Chicago and its school system pointed out the district currently faces a reported $500 million deficit, and drew attention to press claims that teachers unions “govern” Chicago — as Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson was previously a local teachers union organizer. In that regard, DeAngelis condemned Chicago politicians writ large for allowing “power-hungry teachers unions” to “lock kids out of school for years starting in 2020.” “Now, they’re prioritizing their friends at the DNC over the kids. They’ll find any excuse to put kids last, and it’s a disgrace,” he said. Johnson declined comment for purposes of this story. Fox News Digital reached out to Weingarten, via the AFT, but did not receive a response. Representatives for Chicago Public Schools also did not respond to a request for comment.
2024 showdown: What happens next in the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump face-off
Vice President Kamala Harris, urged her supporters to “get out there, let’s fight for it,” as she concluded her presidential nomination acceptance speech at this week’s Democratic National Convention. With both major party national nominating conventions now in the books, the 2024 edition of the race for the White House enters the final sprint. Both Harris and former President Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee, will be back on the campaign trail in the upcoming week, along with their running mates, making stops across some of the seven crucial battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the November election. HARRIS TAKES AIM AT TRUMP AS SHE VOWS ‘TO BE A PRESIDENT FOR ALL AMERICANS’ It’s a process that will be repeated each and every week until Election Day. Harris interview? The former president, his running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, and their campaign and allied Republicans have repeatedly criticized Harris for not holding a major news conference or sitting for an interview since replacing Biden atop their party’s 2024 ticket over a month ago. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING IN THE 2024 ELECTION So all eyes will be on Harris to see if she lives up to her promise to do a national news media interview in the week left in the month of August. Fundraising fight There’s just one week left in August, and the end of the month will bring anticipation of the latest fundraising figures from both the Trump and Harris campaigns. President Biden enjoyed the fundraising lead over Trump earlier this year, but the former president saw his fundraising soar in the late spring and early summer. But after Biden’s blockbuster move to end his re-election bid and Harris replacing him as the Democrats’ standard-bearer, the campaign and the party’s fundraising surged and Harris walloped Trump in fundraising during July. The August numbers, which the campaigns could release as early as September 1, will be closely watched and scrutinized, as fundraising along with polling is a crucial metric. Debate clash The first and possibly the only presidential debate between Harris and Trump is scheduled for Sept. 10 in Philadelphia. The face-off could be the most important evening in the 2024 presidential election, with the power to potentially shift or transform the current margin-of-error race between the vice president and the former president. Need proof – just look back to the late June debate between Biden and Trump. The president’s disastrous performance fueled questions about whether the 81-year-old president had the mental and physical stamina to handle another four years in the White House. And it sparked calls from within his own party for Biden to drop out of the race. Less than a month after the clash in Atlanta, the president was out of the race. Early voting There are 73 days to go until Election Day, but some voters will start casting ballots next month. In swing state North Carolina, mail-in voting begins on Sept. 6. And early voting begins on Sept. 16 in Pennsylvania and Sept. 26 in Michigan, two other crucial electoral battlegrounds. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.