Ghana ports authority to waive rent on congested cargo

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Ghana ports authority to waive rent on congested cargo

Ghana’s ports authority will waive rent on cargo delayed by congestion, part of a set of cost cutting pledges agencies made at a shippers’ forum in Accra last week.

The Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA) convened the meeting on 25 June at Shippers’ House in Accra, bringing together customs, port and finance officials to answer complaints gathered from importers and exporters during its second quarter sessions.

Those complaints matter to every trader moving goods through Tema and Takoradi, and to a government trying to keep Ghana competitive against neighbouring ports. Pressure over charges peaked in April, when the Ghana Union of Traders’ Associations (GUTA) ordered a five day halt to duty payments in protest at a new customs valuation tool, the Publican artificial intelligence (AI) system, which traders blamed for sharply higher import duties.

The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority told the forum it would drop rent on cargo trapped by congestion while it upgrades the ports of Tema and Takoradi. Its Deputy Marketing Manager, Abena Serwaa Opoku-Fosu, said the work was meant to speed the movement of containers.

A Ministry of Finance representative, Kofi Baidoo, said genuine complaints about duty discrepancies produced by the Publican AI system would be resolved, and urged affected shippers to file them formally.

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) made the system mandatory for all import clearances on 12 March, presenting it as a guard against falsified invoices and lost revenue. Traders reported the opposite effect. GUTA president Clement Boateng said in April that some assessments had jumped several times over. “What we used to pay has tripled, even quadrupled,” he said. The GRA has defended the tool, with an official tracing its rollout to widespread invoice fraud.

Shippers had earlier listed congestion, repeated inspections, documentation fraud, corruption and unofficial charges as the main cost drivers. Agencies said they would act on graft reports once formally filed, and pointed to the Integrated Customs Management System, whose electronic transactions are meant to cut the face to face contact that breeds bribes. At Tema, National Security Coordinator Major Adams Suleman gave assurances of safe passage for goods.

The GSA’s Head of Shipper Services and Trade Facilitation, Monica Josiah, said the authority would keep collecting complaints and press the responsible agencies until the pledges show results at the ports.

The effort runs alongside a cap on the Container Administrative Charge, set at GH¢720 for each twenty foot equivalent unit, which the GSA estimates could save shippers about GH¢802.5 million a year. Stakeholders agreed to keep meeting and to track the commitments quarter by quarter.

TikTok Settles Lawsuit With Florida Teen

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TikTok Settles Lawsuit With Florida Teen

TikTok has settled a lawsuit filed by a 15-year-old Florida boy who accused the platform of designing addictive features that harmed his mental health, his attorneys said Tuesday.

The boy, identified in court filings only by his initials, R.K.C., had accused TikTok, Meta’s Instagram, YouTube and Snap of building their platforms around features such as infinite scroll and autoplay to keep young users engaged. Terms of the settlement have not been finalized or disclosed, according to representatives for the plaintiff’s legal team at Morgan and Morgan. A TikTok spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Attorney Emily Jeffcott, who represents R.K.C., said the case deserves attention because of his age. “He’s still a kid,” she said, noting that he remains in high school while assessing how social media has affected him.

YouTube reached its own settlement with R.K.C. on June 23, leaving Meta and Snap as the remaining defendants in a trial scheduled to begin July 27 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. TikTok had previously settled a separate case in the same litigation in January, before it went to trial.

R.K.C.’s case is the second individual trial to emerge from consolidated litigation brought by thousands of plaintiffs against the four companies over claims of addictive platform design. The first, involving a 20 year old identified as K.G.M., ended in March with a jury awarding six million dollars in damages against Meta and Google’s YouTube after finding both companies negligent. Meta and Google have said they plan to appeal.

According to Jeffcott, R.K.C. began using social media around age 8 and has since been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder connected to that use. He started seeing therapists in 2023 for those conditions. Attorney Rahul Ravipudi, who also represents R.K.C., said his case will present a different picture for jurors than K.G.M.’s did. “The impacts on a male and on somebody who’s a minor currently involve different circumstances,” he said.

The broader litigation has already produced other settlements. In May, Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube agreed to pay a combined 27 million dollars to resolve a lawsuit brought by a Kentucky school district, a case seen as a test for roughly 1,200 similar lawsuits filed by school districts nationwide. Separately, more than 30 U.S. states are suing Meta over similar allegations in a case expected to go to trial in Oakland in August.

Ministry Orders GDCL To Reverse Staff Suspension

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Ministry Orders GDCL To Reverse Staff Suspension

Ghana’s communications ministry has ordered Ghana Digital Centres Limited (GDCL) to reverse a decision suspending all staff contracts after floods damaged its Accra facility on June 29.

The Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations issued the directive Tuesday, less than 48 hours after GDCL circulated a notice suspending employment contracts for all workers effective July 1, pending what management called a comprehensive damage assessment. “The Ministry takes a very strong view of the directive,” the ministry said in its statement, instructing GDCL management to withdraw the suspension immediately and telling staff to disregard it.

GDCL manages the Accra Digital Centre, a state owned technology hub established in 2017 to support digital startups and was projected to create 10,000 direct and indirect jobs when launched. The centre reported that 23 businesses operating within its premises were affected by the flooding, which submerged portions of the facility and damaged equipment and documents.

The June 29 floods hit large parts of Accra, killing five people, leaving one person missing and prompting the Ghana National Fire Service to rescue 479 residents citywide. The National Peace Council also reported significant flood damage to its Accra headquarters the same day.

Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations Minister Samuel Nartey George visited the Accra Digital Centre on June 30 to assess the damage. The ministry said it has invited GDCL management to a meeting Wednesday to discuss the matter further, and reaffirmed its support for affected staff. “The Ministry stands with its staff and the staff of all our agencies,” the statement said.

GDCL Deputy Chief Executive Officer Christine Adwoa Agyapomaa Ansong had earlier defended the suspension, saying it did not amount to dismissals. She said the move followed extensive flood damage that left parts of the facility unsafe and disrupted the centre’s ability to generate revenue, and that management intended to recall staff once repairs were completed and operations resumed.

Microsoft, Lightstorm To Build India Undersea Cable

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Microsoft, Lightstorm To Build India Undersea Cable

A consortium led by Microsoft and Indian telecom startup Lightstorm will build a 3,600 kilometer undersea cable linking India to Singapore and Malaysia by 2029, the companies said Thursday, as technology firms race to expand artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure across one of the world’s fastest growing data markets.

The cable, named I-2SEA, will also involve Tata Communications, Singapore Telecommunications, Singapore’s ASEAN Cableship and Japan’s NEC Corporation. Lightstorm holds majority ownership of the project, which the companies said is designed to support AI, cloud and hyperscale computing workloads. None of the parties disclosed the investment size.

The system will feature two landing points on India’s east coast, including one at Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, where Meta and Alphabet have both announced data centres. Lightstorm plans to connect that landing station to its existing terrestrial network, which spans more than 30,000 kilometers and links more than 80 data centres across India, including hubs in Hyderabad and Mumbai. The company said the combined subsea and land route is intended to offer low latency transmission between Southeast Asia and Hyderabad.

Lightstorm Group Chief Executive and Managing Director Amajit Gupta told Reuters the cable is expected to enter service in the fourth quarter of 2029. He said the company currently connects 19 AI and cloud zones across India through its terrestrial fibre network and expects the new cable to expand that reach to 29 zones.

India’s operational data centre capacity, currently at 1.4 gigawatts, could double by 2027 based on projects already under construction, and rise fivefold by 2030 if planned projects proceed on schedule, according to a Macquarie Equity Research report published last October.

Undersea cables carry an estimated 95 percent of global internet traffic. India currently operates 17 active submarine cables with a combined maximum capacity of 960 terabits per second, and at least 10 more have been publicly announced, according to telecommunications research firm TeleGeography.

Gupta also said Lightstorm plans to list on Indian markets in mid 2027, without providing further detail. A media report in March said the company was seeking a valuation of up to 1.5 billion dollars.

Chloe Bailey Details Signs Of Ex’s Cheating

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Chloe Bailey Details Signs Of Ex’s Cheating

Chloe Bailey said she pieced together an ex’s cheating from a stray eyelash extension and hair tie, according to a Call Her Daddy episode released Wednesday.

Speaking with host Alex Cooper, Bailey said she learned about the alleged infidelity through several channels. Fans sent her direct messages with information, she said, and others reached out to her godmother. She also noticed physical clues herself, including an eyelash extension in her ex’s bathroom that she knew was not hers, since she had not been wearing lashes at the time, along with a hair tie left behind.

Bailey said her reaction depends on her mood. After spotting the eyelash, she said she kept quiet, photographed it and texted her godmother rather than confronting her partner right away. “I kept it internal, and I took a picture of it, and I texted my godmom,” she said, calling her godmother her “voice of reason.”

Rather than raising the issue that night, Bailey said she waited until morning and acted as though she had just discovered the evidence. “I peeped it, and I kept it quiet till the next morning, and then I walked in the bathroom like it was brand new,” she said, adding that she wanted one more night together first. She described the decision by saying, “I’m that toxic.”

Cooper also asked whether Bailey had acted on lyrics she wrote about retaliating against a cheating partner by being unfaithful herself. Bailey said her definition of cheating is narrow, describing it as responding to messages from people she previously ignored.

The eyelash and hair tie details echo a similar account Bailey gave in a 2023 interview, when she said discovering a lash extension and hair ties that were not hers helped inspire her song “Cheatback.”

Bailey did not name the ex involved in the Call Her Daddy story. She has previously been linked to several public figures, including a brief, widely publicized relationship with Nigerian singer Burna Boy that ran from late 2024 into early 2025, as well as earlier rumored relationships with rapper Gunna and footballer Memphis Depay.

INEC, NOA Deploy 818 Offices For Voter Education

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INEC, NOA Deploy 818 Offices For Voter Education

Nigeria’s electoral commission and orientation agency will deploy 818 grassroots offices nationwide to close voter education gaps before the 2027 general elections, officials said Wednesday in Abuja.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan made the announcement while receiving National Orientation Agency (NOA) Director General Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu during a courtesy visit to INEC headquarters. Issa-Onilu said the NOA network spans 774 local government areas, all 36 states, six zonal directorates and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), giving the agency reach INEC lacks on its own.

Issa-Onilu pointed to Nigeria’s 2023 general election as evidence of the gap the partnership aims to close. He said that election marked the first time large numbers of Generation Z voters took part, and it exposed widespread confusion among them about constitutional rules governing presidential elections and the court process that follows disputed results. He said civic education needs to run continuously rather than starting only months before a vote.

Amupitan cited two recent elections as proof that Nigeria’s voting technology now performs well on its own terms. Over 90 percent of polling units opened early during the February 21 FCT Area Council election and the June 20 off cycle governorship election in Ekiti State, he said, with biometric checks completed through the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and results uploaded quickly to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). Even so, both elections showed low turnout and voter confusion over polling unit changes and registration transfers, which Amupitan said points to a lag between the technology and public understanding of it.

“The era of snatching ballot boxes or rewriting results manually is gone,” Amupitan said, describing the shift as the direct result of the current voting technology.

INEC and NOA agreed to launch a joint campaign against vote buying and misinformation, with NOA field officers to receive technical training on INEC’s systems so they can answer questions in communities. Amupitan said the presidential election is set for January 16, 2027, with governorship elections following on February 6.

Ex-St. Louis Inspector Pleads Guilty To Fraud

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Ex-St. Louis Inspector Pleads Guilty To Fraud

A former St. Louis building inspector pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of wire fraud after steering $1.64 million meant for city property repairs to himself and relatives.

Adebanjo “Banjo” Popoola, 57, entered his plea in U.S. District Court in St. Louis as part of an agreement in which prosecutors did not drop any charges. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith, who handles the case, told reporters afterward that Popoola “took advantage of the system and defrauded programs” meant to serve city residents.

Popoola worked as a building division inspector overseeing two city rehabilitation programs, Stable Communities STL and Prop NS. Stable Communities STL was funded through federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money and covered privately owned properties, while Prop NS used city bonds to fund repairs on properties owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority (LRA). Popoola’s duties included selecting properties for repair, awarding contracts and certifying that work had been completed before releasing payment.

He admitted arranging for his sister, a Texas resident with no prior ties to St. Louis, to register Farst Construction LLC in Missouri in October 2022. His future wife had separately formed Premier Finish Contractors LLC in February 2021. Between 2023 and 2024, Popoola directed roughly $1.4 million in Stable Communities STL contracts and $339,500 in Prop NS contracts to Farst, and about $1.3 million and $853,100 respectively to Premier. Together the two companies received $3.32 million, or 42 percent of the $7.19 million disbursed through the Stable Communities STL program.

Property owners and Land Reutilization Authority representatives said the companies frequently failed to complete the paid work, but Popoola falsely certified it as finished. He, his sister and his wife shared joint bank accounts into which the city funds were deposited, and Popoola admitted spending the money on mortgage payments, vehicle repairs, travel, a September 2023 wedding in Hawaii, and casino gambling. He also admitted lying on city disclosure forms in 2022 and 2023 by denying any financial interest in companies doing business with St. Louis.

Neither Popoola’s sister nor his wife has been charged in the case.

The scheme first came to light in December 2024 through local news reporting that linked Popoola to Farst Construction’s city contracts. He resigned days after a second report tied him to Premier. The city’s then mayor, Tishaura Jones, paused both programs and asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Missouri state auditor to investigate. Federal prosecutors indicted Popoola in March 2026.

Popoola is scheduled to be sentenced October 6. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both, and Popoola will be ordered to repay the stolen funds. His attorneys are disputing prosecutors’ position that he led the scheme.

Meta Builds Cloud Unit To Sell AI Compute

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Meta Builds Cloud Unit To Sell AI Compute

Meta Platforms is building a new cloud unit called Meta Compute to sell spare artificial intelligence (AI) computing power, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, sending its shares up more than 10 percent on the day.

Three executives are leading the effort, according to Bloomberg: infrastructure chief Santosh Janardhan, Daniel Gross of Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Meta President Dina Powell McCormick. The plans remain in development and could still change, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Meta is weighing two approaches. One would let outside developers access AI models hosted on its own infrastructure, including its recently unveiled Muse Spark model, and pay based on the computing power they use, similar to Amazon Web Services’ Bedrock platform. The other would involve selling raw computing capacity directly, the approach used by so called neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius.

That prospect hit both companies hard. CoreWeave shares fell 10.8 percent and Nebius dropped 12.4 percent on concerns that Meta, a major customer of both firms, could cut its spending with them while becoming a rival supplier at the same time.

Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson, said the shift would likely hurt neoclouds more than established cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet. “Meta may not need them anymore,” Luria said, noting that CoreWeave and Nebius depend heavily on Meta for growth. He compared the situation to SpaceX, whose Musk owned xAI unit has rented out spare capacity at its Memphis data centres to Anthropic and Google.

Meta’s move would deepen its rivalry with established cloud leaders while reducing its reliance on advertising revenue. It also comes as analysts continue to question whether Meta’s AI research effort, backed by billions of dollars in spending and a wave of high profile hires last year, can catch up with labs such as Anthropic. Muse Spark, unveiled in April, has yet to reach outside developers, and a Wall Street Journal report last month said Meta has not set a launch date for it.

At Meta’s shareholder meeting in May, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said entering the cloud business was “definitely on the table,” and noted that outside companies approach Meta almost weekly seeking access to its AI models or spare computing power. Meta expects to spend as much as 145 billion dollars on AI infrastructure this year, part of an industry wide outlay by major technology companies that has topped 700 billion dollars.

Meta declined to comment on the report.

Apple In Talks To Buy Blacklisted Chinese Chips

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Apple In Talks To Buy Blacklisted Chinese Chips

Apple is in advanced talks to buy memory chips from two Chinese manufacturers on a Pentagon blacklist, as a global AI driven shortage forces the company to raise prices, Bloomberg News reported on July 1, citing people familiar with the matter.

The negotiations, first reported by the Financial Times, involve ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC). Apple wants the companies to supply dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and flash storage chips for devices sold only in the Chinese market. No agreement has been finalized and talks remain ongoing.

Both companies sit on the US Defense Department’s Section 1260H list, a congressionally mandated roster of firms the Pentagon says support the Chinese military. YMTC was added to the list in January 2024 and CXMT followed in 2025. Apple attempted to source memory from YMTC once before, in 2022, but abandoned the plan after pushback from US lawmakers and officials.

Republican Representative Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has already objected to the talks. He called CXMT and YMTC Chinese military companies and warned the move would undercut supply chain security. “Allowing this decision to go forward would destroy the President’s agenda,” Mast said.

The 1260H designation does not legally prevent private companies from buying from the listed firms, so Apple does not need formal government approval to proceed. Its greater concern, according to Bloomberg, is that Washington could later add CXMT and YMTC to the Commerce Department’s stricter Entity List, which would ban the purchases outright. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has raised the issue directly with Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, seeking assurances before committing to a deal. Some administration officials have reportedly objected to giving Apple room to proceed.

A deal would expand Apple’s memory suppliers to five, adding to its existing reliance on Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology. All three have shifted production toward high bandwidth memory for AI data centres, tightening the supply of standard chips used in phones, tablets and laptops. Standard DRAM contract prices have climbed by an estimated 55 to 60 percent since early 2026, according to industry estimates.

Apple raised prices across its Mac, iPad and Vision Pro lines last week, with some MacBook Pro configurations rising by up to 400 dollars and MacBook Air prices increasing by 200 dollars. The company has cited the memory shortage as the reason for the increases.

Frankie Muniz And Wife Paige Announce Divorce

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Frankie Muniz And Wife Paige Announce Divorce

“Malcolm in the Middle” actor and NASCAR driver Frankie Muniz and his wife Paige Muniz announced on July 1 that they are divorcing after roughly seven years of marriage.

The couple, who have been together for a decade, shared the news in a joint social media statement. Muniz, 40, wrote that the decision followed a period of separation the pair had kept private, adding that their bond now feels strongest as a friendship and co-parenting partnership. He said their five-year-old son, Mauz Mosley Muniz, remains the center of their world and credited Paige with putting her own goals aside to support his career. “That foundation of respect and friendship isn’t going anywhere,” Muniz wrote.

The pair said they plan to keep running their joint venture, Muniz Racing, together and to continue co-parenting their son as a team.

Muniz first posted the announcement alongside a video of the family dancing at home, but later deleted it and reposted the same statement with a family photo instead. Paige Muniz responded in the comments, writing that she was sorry Frankie felt pressure to remove what she called an old, fun family video because of public criticism. She added that divorce is difficult but said the two remain on the same team as co-parents.

Muniz and Paige met in 2016 at a celebrity golf event, where she worked as a presenter for a golf network, and the couple got engaged in 2018.

Muniz spent his childhood starring on the Fox sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle” and recently returned to the franchise for its revival, “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Unfair.” His focus in recent years has shifted to auto racing. More than a decade after a series of injuries ended an earlier racing career, Muniz announced his return to stock car racing in 2023 through the American Racing Club of America’s Menards Series. He now competes in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing’s Craftsman Truck Series.

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