Herdsmen Invade Enugu Community, Kill Catholic Seminarian

Christopher Isiguzo and Gideon Arinze in Enugu

Suspected Fulani herdsmen in the early hours of on
Thursday invaded the sleepy Ndiagu Attakwu Akegbe-Ugwu
community in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu
State, killing a Catholic seminarian, Lazarus Okafor, and
injuring four others, including a pregnant woman.
The suspected herders were said to have invaded the Ogbodo
Nwarum family compound in the community at about 2 a.m.
and wreaked havoc on the entire household.
While the seminarian had severe machete cuts which led to
his death, the fou

Muhammad Ali funeral: Rousing farewell at Louisville memorial

Rousing

tributes have been paid to boxing legend Muhammad
Ali at a memorial service in his home city of Louisville,
Kentucky.
Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other speakers spoke of his
fight for civil rights, while a message from President Barack
Obama praised his originality.
The interfaith event took place hours after thousands said
farewell to his coffin passing through city streets.
Ali was buried in a private ceremony attended by friends and
family.
The ex-heavyweight champion and rights activist died last
Friday aged 74.
The service, attended by dignitaries and by several thousand
people who acquired free tickets, was held at the KFC Yum!
Centre.
After a Koran reading, local Protestant minister Kevin Cosby
set the tone of the event, saying that Muhammad Ali had
"infused in Africans a sense of somebodiness".
"Before James Brown said 'I'm black and I'm proud',
Muhammad Ali said 'I'm black and I'm pretty'," he said.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of a progressive Jewish
magazine, used his speech to launch a blistering attack on
injustice against black people and Muslims.
"The way to honour Muhammad Ali is to be Muhammad Ali
today," he said. "Speak out and refuse to follow the path of
conformity."
Later Valerie Jarrett, an aide to President Obama who knew
the boxer personally, read a letter from the president
describing Ali as "bigger, brighter and more influential than just
about anyone in his era".
"You couldn't have made him up, and yes, he was pretty too,"
Mr Obama wrote.
"Muhammad Ali was America. Muhammad Ali will always be
America. What a man."
The president was not there, as he was attending his eldest
daughter Malia's graduation.
Former President Bill Clinton is to deliver one of the eulogies.
Ali's wife Lonnie paid tribute to her husband. She told the
crowd: "If Muhammad didn't like the rules, he rewrote them.
His religion, his beliefs, his name were his to fashion, no
matter what the cost.
"Muhammad wants young people of every background to see
his life as proof that adversity can make you stronger. It
cannot rob you of the power to dream, and to reach your
dreams."The comedian Billy Crystal delivered a eulogy peppered with
jokes, laughing at the length of the service and saying that his
beard had grown since it started.
Then he said that "35 years after he stopped fighting, [Ali was]
still the champion of the world".
He said: "He was a tremendous bolt of lightning created by
Mother Nature. Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of
America's darkest night and his intense light shone on America
and we were able to see clearly."
Among those attending the service is King Abdullah of Jordan.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Thursday's
prayer ceremony and had been due at the service, but cut
short his visit to the US.
The reasons for his departure are not clear, though there are
reports of differences with the funeral's organisers.
Rose petals
The motorcade procession began at about 10:35 local time
(14:35 GMT), more than an hour behind schedule, and took
the coffin past Ali's childhood home, the Ali Center, the Center
for African American Heritage and then down Muhammad Ali
Boulevard.
Onlookers lining the roadside waved, took photos and chanted
"Ali, Ali" as a cortege led by the hearse carrying his coffin
drove through the downtown area.

New York plane crash: WW2 aircraft in Hudson River

A vintage World War Two aircraft has crashed in the Hudson
River between New York and New Jersey.
The plane - a single-seater P-47 Thunderbolt - went down two
miles (3.2km) south of George Washington Bridge.
Divers later recovered a body - believed to be that of the pilot -
from the submerged plane.
The cause of the crash has not been confirmed, but engine
failure has been cited as a possible cause.
The plane was one of three that flew from an airfield in
Farmingdale, east of New York City.
They were taking part in shooting a promotional video to mark
the 75th anniversary of the American Airpower Museum.
The two other aircraft - a P-40 and a plane taking the
photographs - returned safely to the airfield.
Scuba divers recovered the body of a 56-year-old man three
hours after the crash. New York police identified the man as
William Gordon of Key West, Florida.
College student Siqi Li saw the plane crash into the river.
"It made kind of a U-turn, and then there was a stream of
smoke coming from it,'' he told New York's Daily News.
"It was tilting down toward the water. I thought they were
doing some sort of trick."
In 2009, the pilot of an airliner with 155 passengers and crew
made an emergency landing in the Hudson.
All those on board were later rescued in what later became
known as the "Miracle on the Hudson".