COVID-19
Big Gigantic Announces Socially Distanced 2021 Mini-Tour
Big Gigantic, the famed electro-funk duo and mayors of Rowdytown, have announced a socially distanced 2021 mini-tour. The tour will kick off on May 5th in Orlando, Florida and stop in Miami before heading north through Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. In an Instagram post announcing the shows, Big G noted that they will consist of a mix of drive-in raves and socially distanced pod shows, and they are “taking all measures for health & safety” into account. “You guys, we missed you so, so much and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come see you all and play some music for you!!” they wrote. Later on in 2021, the duo will be headlining twin “Rowdytown” shows at the fabled Red Rocks Amphitheatre in their home of Colorado. Joining t...
Ex-President Jonathan enlists colleagues to mitigate electoral crises in West Africa
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has enlisted the support of other ex-presidents and Prime Ministers in West Africa to mitigate elections-related conflicts to promote peace in the region. Mrs Ann Iyonu, Executive Director, Goodluck Jonathan Foundation (GJF) announced this at a news conference in Yenagoa on Friday. Iyonu said that the former leaders’ group christened West African Elders Forum (WAEF) was inaugurated by Jonathan at a virtual meeting held on Thursday. She said that WAEF was an initiative of the GJF aimed at harnessing the goodwill, expertise and experiences of former leaders to promote peaceful elections and deepen democracy in West Africa. According to her, the forum comprises three former leaders of Nigeria, Ex-President Jonathan, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Retired Gen. A...
NPHCDA: States yet to meet conditions won’t get coronavirus vaccines
National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, said, yesterday, that states yet to meet the criteria for COVID-19 vaccines would not get a share of the 3.92 million AstraZeneca vaccines received by the country on Tuesday. Executive Director of the agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, who disclosed this at a State House briefing in Abuja, also said President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would be vaccinated publicly tomorrow, while members of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, would have theirs on Monday. He said: “After we are able to get our strategic leaders to publicly demonstrate that these vaccines are safe, the plan is to now go to the state level to start the launch at the treatment centres of the states and also get strategic leaders, such as governors, to publi...
2,700 Akwa Ibom women benefit from federal government’s special grant
The minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has advised Nigerian women not to regard the N20, 000 special grant given to the rural woman by the federal government as the fabled national cake. She has rather charged the beneficiaries to judiciously use the grant to improve their living standard by utilizing it as seed capital do boost their trades and businesses for greater income. Speaking through Bashir Nura Alkali, the permanent secretary of the ministry, at the flag off of the Grant for Rural Women Project and the symbolic disbursement of the grant to 2700 women of Akwa Ibom state, in Uyo, on Thursday, Farouq explained that the Grant for Rural Women Programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of Presid...
Scammers are Selling Fake COVID-19 Vaccines for up to $1,200
Underground scammers are selling fake COVID-19 vaccines. The majority of sellers originated in France, Germany, the UK, and the USA, and the prices per dose range from $250 to $1,200, with an average cost of about $500. Scammers and buyers usually get in contact via encrypted messaging apps like Wickr and Telegram, while payments are requested in the form of cryptocurrency, primarily Bitcoin. The majority of these underground sellers have made between 100-500 transactions. With the information available to Kaspersky experts, it’s impossible to tell how many doses of the vaccine being advertised online are actual doses (many medical facilities have found themselves with leftover doses) and how many advertisements are a scam. “You can find just about anything on the Darknet, so it’s not surp...
Just Because COVID-19 Restrictions Are Lifting Doesn’t Mean Venues Are Opening
Over the past 24 hours, several states have reduced the restrictions in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. On Tuesday, both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves abruptly decided to lift all capacity restrictions on businesses and end their states’ mask mandates starting next week. Then today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that plays, concerts, and other performances can resume indoors at limited capacity beginning next month. Just because music venues are allowed to reopen, however, doesn’t mean they’re all jumping at the opportunity to do so. The intensity and longevity of the coronavirus pandemic has been a major burden, if not an outright death bell, for independent music venues over the past year. Despite Congress allocating $15 billion for thea...
The Stone Roses’ Ian Brown Refuses to Play Festival With Mandatory Vaccination Policy
Ian Brown has said a lot of crazy shit about the coronavirus. In a bizarre Twitter rant last fall, the former Stone Roses frontman called COVID-19 a “plandemic” that’s making us “digital slaves”, and he shared a new solo song that fleshed out his worldview into 5G microchip territory. Since then, he’s continued to blather conspiratorial nonsense on Twitter, and now he’s putting his money where his mouth is. As of today, the English musician has stepped down as the headliner of an upcoming UK festival because attendees are required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. The 58-year-old was slated to headline the second night of a three-day festival called Neighbourhood Weekender, but after organizers announced that they’re pushing the fest back to September and that attendees will have to s...
Bun B Keeps It Very Trill, Calls Governor Greg Abbott’s Decision To Fully Open Texas “Batsh*t Crazy”
Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty Texas Governor Greg Abbott had everyone looking at him sideways, including Houston native Bun B, after he announced he was lifting mask mandates and fully opening the state. Bun B kept it real trill on Instagram after Abbott’s ridiculous decision to lift the mask mandate put in place to protect Texans from COVID-19 and allowing businesses to open at 100% capacity despite numerous warnings from health officials. In a caption along with a video featuring a fully-vaccinated Abbott happily making the bonehead announcement, in a room of maskless individuals, the rapper directly called out the governor, “This is bat shit crazy @govabbott, and you know it. As if you didn’t already have enough blood on your hands. SMFH.” Abbott’s announcement comes on the he...
Full-Capacity Concerts, Music Festivals May Return in Texas and Mississippi After Lift of Mask Mandates
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has effectively opened the door for the state’s events sector to reopen, including full-capacity concerts and music festivals. After the passing of Executive Order GA-34, all Texas businesses will be able to reopen with no restrictions—including mask-wearing—starting March 10th. “I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING,” Abbott tweeted on Tuesday, March 2nd. “I also ended the statewide mask mandate.” Following Abbott’s executive order, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced his own, which reopened the state in similar fashion. “Starting tomorrow, we are lifting all of our county mask mandates and businesses will be able to operate at full capacity without any state-imposed rules,” he tweet...
WHO: End to pandemic not likely in 2021
The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes it is unlikely the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19）will come to an end by the end of 2021. “I think it will be very premature and unrealistic to think that we are going to finish with this virus by the end of the year,” Michael Ryan, director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, said at a briefing on Tuesday. “What we can, if we are smart, finish with is the hospitalisations and the deaths and the tragedy associated with this pandemic,” Ryan added. The WHO’s focus at present was to keep transmissions as low as possible and vaccinate more and more people. The situation regarding the delivery of vaccine doses had already improved compared to 10 weeks ago, Ryan said, although there were “huge challenges” in distributing them and the virus stil...
Primavera Sound Festival 2021 Canceled Due to COVID-19
Next verse, same as the first: Primavera Sound Festival 2021 has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 edition of the Barcelona fest was first postponed, then scratched outright. But there was reason to think the 2021 iteration would be allowed to go on this June as scheduled. In January, Primavera organizers hosted a trial concert that showed no transmission of the novel coronavirus. Besides that, the global vaccine push has inspired optimism in all corners of the globe. But those sunny feelings are tempered by uncertainty surrounding three potentially alarming new virus variants first identified in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil. Besides that, America’s foremost infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci has been cautioning that live events won’t be able to safely return until ...
Barcelona, Atletico Madrid ordered to further tighten belts by La Liga
FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid will have to cut down the costs of their squads by more than 35 million euros ($42.14 million) following new salary limits imposed by La Liga on Tuesday to cope with the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The figures, published twice annually following each transfer window, dictate how much teams can spend on players, coaches, support staff and their youth teams. They are calculated in line with revenues, which have been obliterated by coronavirus restrictions preventing fans from attending matches for 12 months while depressing the transfer market and reducing income from merchandising. Barcelona are the club most acutely affected by the new limits and will be forced to reduce their costs by an additional 35.7 million euros, to 347 million. League ...
