A Nigerian boxer identified as Isaiah Olugbemi was shot dead by his neighbour, Nicholas Francis Xavier Giroux on Monday.

The unfortunate incident happened in Meadowmist Way and Stehlik Drive in Odenton, United States.

The victim who was reportedly shot multiple times, was a neighbour to the accused and an up-and-coming boxer.

Despite being rushed to Baltimore, he did not survive the incident.

Detectives obtained video surveillance footage showing Giroux, walking directly to Olugbemi with a handgun before shooting him multiple times and fleeing the scene on foot, according to court documents.

According to the Police, Giroux confessed to the shooting on June 18.

Abraham Olugbemi, the victim’s brother, was quoted as saying that Giroux was Isaiah Olugbemi’s neighbour.

He alleged Giroux threatened Isaiah Olugbemi at least two other times with a gun this year; once in January and a second time in June.

It was revealed that Giroux fired six to 14 shots at Olugbemi, paused and then fired at least three more times.

The commencement of the hearing in the case is set for July 17.

The accused is charged with first-and-second-degree murder in the Nigerian, Isaiah Olugbemi’s death.

A Decade ago Jordan Bardella was a mere teenager, spending hours after school firing at enemy combatants on “Call of Duty” video games.

Today the 28-year-old leader of the hard-right National Rally may be weeks away from becoming prime minister of France, and its youngest ever by a long way.

After a two-round legislative election on June 30th and July 7th, his party could win enough seats to form a government.

The ascent of Marine Le Pen’s young protégé from obscurity to the cusp of high office is one of the more improbable in modern French politics.

The son of an Italian-born mother and a father whose family arrived in France from Italy, Mr Bardella grew up in social housing in Seine-Saint-Denis, a multicultural northern banlieue (suburb) of Paris. What could have held him back in life became his political selling-point.

“I have my roots there, a part of myself and my family’s history,” Mr Bardella told Le Monde, recalling the drug dealers that hung out on a battered sofa on the landing outside his flat. “I’m in politics for everything that I lived through back there.”

This backstory, as well as his unusual poise, grabbed Ms Le Pen’s eye early on. Both assets were politically valuable for a party that, under her stewardship since 2011, has been trying to transform itself from a fringe xenophobic protest outfit into a party that speaks for the people and promises to govern on their behalf.

At the age of 16, Mr Bardella joined the party because of Ms Le Pen’s takeover.

Seven years later—after he had dropped out of a geography degree at the Sorbonne university and gone into local politics—she picked him to lead her party into elections in 2019 to the European Parliament.

A year earlier, she had changed its name from the tainted National Front she inherited from her antisemitic, xenophobic father to the National Rally (RN), a name with more mainstream associations.

Not everyone within the party was happy with Mr Bardella’s hasty rise. Rivals considered him too young, inexperienced and disconnected from core party loyalists.

Mr Bardella’s formal consecration came in 2022, when he beat Ms Le Pen’s former romantic partner, Louis Aliot, to be elected president of the RN.

That freed Ms Le Pen from daily party affairs (she remains head of its bloc in parliament, and will undoubtedly be its nominee for the next presidential race, in 2027).

Since then, Mr Bardella has earned respect among a generation of younger rn figures. “He has an impressive work ethic and maturity,” says Jean-Philippe Tanguy, an outgoing rn deputy, adding that Mr Bardella’s asset is that he is open to criticism but “ruthless with pointless whiners.”

To voters, Mr Bardella has lent the RN a presentable modern face and unflappable style. A child of the screen era, Mr Bardella has in the past posted clips on a YouTube channel in which he commentated on his video-game performances.

Today he has 1.6m followers on TikTok, and mixes campaign clips with those of himself squeezing mayonnaise into a hotdog or climbing aboard a fishing trawler in the fog. “He looks like a nice guy” is a typical comment made by voters on the ground who have no ideological link to the rn.

What lies behind that smooth exterior, though, remains something of a mystery. In his short career, Mr Bardella has never held a job outside politics.

Fixated on the sanitisation of the party, he baulks at any reference to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s antisemitic era, or the unsavoury figures who linger in party circles from that time.

The young rn president owes his promotion to Ms Le Pen, and colleagues say that his loyalty to her is absolute. But politics is what it is; such fidelity has so far been untested. Differences between them do exist.

The party formerly borrowed money from a Kremlin-linked bank, and deputies abstained at a parliamentary vote earlier this year on France’s bilateral security agreement with Ukraine.

Mr Bardella, though, has recently sounded a somewhat more critical note about Vladimir Putin, blaming escalation on the Russian leader; Ms Le Pen tends to point the finger at President Emmanuel Macron, who has refused to rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine.

If he is nominated as prime minister, Mr Bardella’s manifesto will be a mix of economic populism and hard-right nationalism.

He has promised “in the first weeks” to tighten immigration rules to make it easier to expel “Islamist foreigners”, and abolish the right to French nationality for those born in the country.

He also vows “immediately” to lower the level of vat from 20% to 5.5% on electricity and gas bills as well as on motor fuel, and to use tax-breaks to raise salaries by up to 10%. Mr Bardella would cut benefits to parents of underage repeat offenders, and turn the current mansion tax into a financial-wealth tax.

He has been more cautious, though, about promising to overturn Mr Macron’s pension reform, which raised the legal minimum retirement age from 62 years to 64; instead, he vows to enable those who started work at the age of 20 to retire at 60.

How such measures would be financed remains alarmingly vague. Renaissance, Mr Macron’s party, calculates that the vat cuts on energy, fuel and food bills alone would cost €24bn ($26bn) a year.

The Institut Montaigne, a liberal think-tank, estimates that, on the basis of Ms Le Pen’s manifesto at the presidential election in 2022, the RN in government would cost a net €100bn extra each year, equivalent to about 3.5% of gdp.

That would add to an already high budget deficit, which the government expects to run at over 5% of GDP this year.

Yet the trouble for centrist voters hoping to obstruct his path to the Matignon, as the French prime minister’s office in Paris is known, is that Mr Bardella has so far managed to shrug off inconvenient details or failings.

That he grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis is widely known; less so, that he attended a private Catholic school there, not the public lycée.

Voters seem no more bothered by his loose grasp of policy detail. During a recent live debate against Gabriel Attal, Mr Macron’s 35-year-old prime minister, Mr Bardella was forced to confess that he had not read the text of a bill in the European Parliament that he had voted against.

A poll the next day, however, suggested that the debate had convinced more people to vote for Mr Bardella’s party than Mr Attal’s.

If Mr Bardella represents anything in these populist times it is that reasoned argument and rational debate are flimsy weapons against the force of simplistic promises and narrative politics.

This story appeared on The Economist with the title A hard-right 28-year-old could soon be France’s prime minister

A new General Manager has been named for Transcorp Hilton Abuja. He is Jorg Potreck.

A statement by the hotel said Potreck has over four decades of hospitality experience with 20 of those as General Manager in various locations including Germany, United Kingdom, Austria, South Africa, and Egypt.

According to the statement, Mr. Potreck returns to Hilton following his recent General Manager role at the Johari Rotana in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

“Potreck started his career as a management trainee in Germany in 1982 and progressed through the ranks before his first General Manager position at the Westin Leipzig, Germany 2004.

“His previous positions include Cluster General Manager at Hilton Hurghada Plaza and Hilton Alexandria Corniche in Egypt, as well as Cluster General Manager at the Hilton Cologne and Hilton Bonn in Germany. “

Mr. Potreck is expected in his new role as the General Manager of Transcorp Hilton Abuja to lead a dynamic team of over 1,800 team members, managing all aspects of the hotel’s operational and commercial functions to drive guest satisfaction.

Commenting on Potreck’s appointment, Andreas Lackner, Vice President, Operations, Africa & Indian Ocean, Hilton, said: “We are excited to welcome Jorg back to the Hilton family.

“With an impressive hospitality background, Jorg is a seasoned hotelier who brings on board a wealth of experience to lead one of our flagship properties on the continent. I am confident that Jorg will help us deliver purposeful service and meaningful experiences to our guests and Team Members alike.”

Reacting to his appointment, Potreck said, “I am thrilled to return to Hilton to lead the incredible team at Transcorp Hilton Abuja. Since the hotel begun operations in 1987, nearly three decades ago, it has remained a national treasure and landmark hotel, for business and leisure travellers alike – setting the benchmark for hospitality standards in Nigeria. I also look forward to developing local talent by creating personalised learning experiences and partnerships that helps the team actualise their career goals.”

Prof. Salami Ismaila, a distinguished scholar from the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Ergonomics) at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), has advocated for human-centred design at workstations, even as he underscored the critical importance of ergonomics in enhancing human well-being and productivity, as well as improving human life.

Delivering the University's 92nd Inaugural Lecture at the Oluwafemi Balogun Ceremonial Building onJune 19, 2024, titled "Ergonomics: A Paradigm Shift from FPJ to FJP towards Adopting Human-Centered Engineering," Prof. Ismaila emphasised the necessity of incorporating ergonomics principles into workplace and tool design, such as regular breaks and stretching exercises, to mitigate the risk of musculoskeletal issues and improve overall quality of life.

Highlighting the shift from "Fitting People to Jobs" (FPJ) to "Fitting Jobs to People" (FJP), he argued for designs that prioritise human capabilities and limitations.

Prof. Ismaila, a former Dean of COLENG affirmed that workstations should support neutral postures, adding that employers should provide adjustable furniture to meet the diverse ergonomic needs of employees.

Stressing the integration of ergonomics into existing occupational health and safety policies, Prof. Ismaila discouraged prolonged sitting in meetings without breaks.

Besides, he suggested incorporating basic ergonomics principles into educational curricula to promote good habits from an early age, while calling for collaboration between government, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders to implement measures that optimise workplace designs, equipment, and processes.

He suggested further that educational institutions should enforce guidelines to ensure students carry only necessary books, thereby reducing physical strain.

According to him, he advised educators to follow school timetables strictly and ensure students carry only necessary books to reduce their daily load.

Advocating for the widespread adoption of ergonomic principles across various sectors, Prof. Ismaila highlighted the vital role of ergonomics in creating human-centred environments that enhance both well-being and productivity.

His words "I have, thereby, showed that the applications of ergonomics make life pleasant, comfortable exciting and cost-effective. I also showed that it is important for heads of industries to adopt ergonomics principles to reduce the attendant costs associated with business-as-usual principles as good ergonomics is good economics."

Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Babatunde Kehinde, who chaired the event, expressed his appreciation for the Lecture's success, lauding Prof. Ismaila as a dedicated and practical-oriented scholar who has significantly contributed to the University’s growth and research efforts aimed at improving Nigeria’s development.