Tinubu Appoints CEOs For NUC, NERDC, NEPAD, SMDFNone
NoneNobel recipient Geoffrey Hinton wishes he thoughts of AI safety soonerNORFOLK, Va. — To shouts of "Coach" and "Let's go Spartans," Michael Vick was introduced Monday as Norfolk State's football coach, a homecoming for the former NFL star and a splashy, attention-grabbing hire for a program that has struggled in recent years. Vick, who grew up about 30 minutes away in Newport News, donned a Norfolk State letterman's jacket and cap in front of a crowd of supporters that included fellow Hampton Roads, Virginia, sports greats Allen Iverson and Bruce Smith. Vick's introduction was the culmination of whirlwind courtship, the timing of which took even Vick by surprise. "I was talking to my high school coach a couple weeks ago, and I told him I wanted to be a football coach one day, a couple years from now," he said. Vick said he then got a surprise call from former Virginia Tech football player Aaron Rouse, who is now a Virginia state senator, and Norfolk State athletic director Melody Webb, gauging his interest in becoming the Spartans' coach. "It wasn't the easiest decision to make," Vick said. "I've got family that I considered, I care about and I love. This requires a lot of change in lifestyle. But at the same time, it allows me to serve young men in my community." Vick led Virginia Tech to the national championship game as a redshirt freshman and was selected No. 1 overall in the 2001 NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons. A three-time Pro Bowl pick in six seasons in Atlanta, he revolutionized the quarterback position with his dynamic running ability. Vick's career was derailed by his conviction in 2007 for his involvement in a dogfighting ring. He pleaded guilty and served 21 months in federal prison before resuming his career in 2009. He retired in 2017 and had been working as an NFL analyst for Fox Sports and as an animal rights activist. Vick's legal troubles were not mentioned Monday, except indirectly by Webb, who praised his ability to "inspire and overcome challenges" and said it is in keeping with the values the school wants to instill in its student-athletes. "His journey is one of resilience and redemption and unwavering commitment to growth," Webb said. Vick has no coaching experience and is the latest former NFL star who had not coached before to take the helm of an HBCU program, a club that includes Deion Sanders and Eddie George. Norfolk State has made only one playoff appearance since moving to FCS in 1997. The last five Spartan head coaches have had losing records, including Dawson Odoms, who was fired in November after going 15-30 in four seasons. School officials hailed Vick's hiring as transformational, however. Webb said Vick's name "resonates around the world." Added rector Kim Brown: "Today we turn the corner and we embrace a new season for our football program." For his part, Vick said he won't be outworked, and that he will recruit hard in his home region, long a hotbed of talent. He said he attended Norfolk State games while playing youth football in Newport News and has followed the program over the years. "It's a lot of pressure being in your hometown," he said. "I've always thrived off it." Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Prof. Toyin Falola of the University of Texas , USA, has stated that corruption is a major factor contributing to ineffective governance and institutional weaknesses in Nigeria. He made this remark on Friday while delivering a convocation lecture at the Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi, on the topic “Power, Politics, and Policies.” Falola lamented the detrimental effects of corruption on key public sectors, particularly healthcare and education, and urged for a comprehensive analysis of existing policies like whistleblower programs and anti-corruption agencies to mitigate these issues. “To reduce corruption and promote a functional government, Nigerians must actively participate in the electoral process and hold leaders accountable,” Falola emphasized. “This requires rejecting money for votes and advocating for transparency and integrity.” The renowned scholar also proposed that the Power, Politics, and Policies (PPP) course in the Department of Political Science at BSU should be upgraded to a full degree program. He explained that this would equip students with the necessary skills in technologies, statistics, economics, and data analysis, while exposing them to key theoretical frameworks such as dependency theory, post-colonialism, clientelism, and federalism. ALSO READ : NUJ Enugu honors Governor Peter Mbah with icon of democracy award Falola further stressed the importance of continuous education for civil servants on power, politics, and policies, recognizing the current gap in their understanding of these critical issues. He argued that this knowledge is essential in addressing the power dynamics fueling insurgency, terrorism, and conflicts between herders and settlers. He concluded by noting that addressing Nigeria’s structural challenges could pave the way for the country to reach its potential as a stable, prosperous, and equitable nation.On Saturday night, Donald Trump announced he intends to appoint Kash Patel as director of the FBI. The news sparked an immediate frenzy from establishment figures across media and politics. Legal and national security “experts” were deployed to the Sunday morning news shows to characterize the move as evidence that Trump intends to politicize the FBI and use it as a weapon against his many political opponents. The political establishment’s concerns about what a Trump FBI could do mirror a lot of what we’ve heard from the right in recent years as they found themselves in the Bureau’s crosshairs. But almost all of these complaints and warnings have operated under the assumption that—with maybe the exception of a few bad episodes in the 1960s—the FBI has long been an essential crime-fighting force that has only recently become—or threatens to become—corrupted by politics. In truth, the FBI has always been used as a weapon against political movements and rivals of the established political class. That’s the reason it was created. At the end of the 1800s, left-wing anarchists were attacking heads of state all across Europe. In a few short years, the king of Italy, the prime minister of Spain, the empress of Austria, and the president of France were all assassinated by anarchists. While no communist or anarchist movement had yet to take over a country, the tenacity of these activists and revolutionaries was seriously concerning those in power in the United States. Then, in 1901, President William McKinley was shot and killed by an anarchist while attending a meet-and-greet in Buffalo, New York, which brought his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, into office. It was President Roosevelt who tapped his Attorney General Charles Bonaparte—the grandnephew of Napoleon—to create the FBI. The AG was required by law to get congressional approval before creating this new “investigative” service of special agents within the Department of Justice. In the spring of 1908, Bonaparte officially requested the money and authority to create the FBI. Congress came back with an emphatic no. Members of the House saw through the innocuous language of the request and figured out exactly what the president and AG were doing—creating a secret police force that was answerable only to them. House Democrats like Joseph Swagar and John J. Fitzgerald and Republicans like Walter I. Smith and George Waldo all loudly condemned the proposal, saying it called for a “system of espionage” comparable to the Tsar’s secret police in Russia that stood in stark contrast to the very principles at the heart of the American system. Congress explicitly forbade the AG from creating this new Bureau. So what did Bonaparte do? He waited for Congress to break for the summer and then went ahead and created the FBI anyway. Congress was only notified about the new federal police force half a year later when Bonaparte included a quick throw-away line at the end of his annual report: “It became necessary for the department to organize a small force of special agents of its own.” So, the FBI was not created in response to out-of-control crime; its creation was a crime. Immediately, the new Bureau was unleashed on anyone and everyone who was perceived as a threat to those in power. That started with left-wing anarchists but quickly expanded to include many antiwar activists as President Wilson pulled the country into World War I. From the outset, the FBI operated primarily as a domestic intelligence agency—recruiting spies within groups they were targeting and breaking into offices and homes, intercepting mail, and tapping the phones of anyone they considered a threat. As the years wore on—like most other executive agencies—the Bureau evolved away from serving the direct interests of whoever happened to sit in the Oval Office to instead serve its own interest and the interest of the broader entrenched, permanent power structure in Washington. In the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, the FBI conducted covert operations aimed at inciting violence between domestic groups, breaking up political organizations it disapproved of, and, perhaps most famously, collecting blackmail on Martin Luther King Jr. that they then tried to use to drive him to commit suicide. Related Articles Commentary | A new Legislative session: Time for pocketbook pragmatism Commentary | Climate activists should pivot from costly pipe dreams to realistic solutions Commentary | Privacy agency oversteps authority, jeopardizes California’s opportunity to lead in AI Commentary | Newsom’s wrongheaded special session is a misuse of gubernatorial power Commentary | Scott Horton: Can Trump actually fend off the war hawks and bring peace? Although today’s FBI acknowledges and publicly disavows these past activities, they are still carrying out egregious operations that always seem to benefit the political class. The Bureau has taken up a kind of sting operation where, over and over again, agents find isolated, gullible, often mentally-handicapped young men, pretend to be political radicals or higher-ups in a terrorist organization, and then convince the young men to plan and carry out a terrorist attack with FBI-funds and resources. Agents then step in at the end and act like they heroically stopped a real plot. The FBI did this relentlessly with young Muslim men after 9/11. The arrests helped prolong the perception that the global war on terror and extreme measures like the Patriot Act were necessary. In recent years, the FBI has conducted a number of similar schemes with right-wing groups—advancing the establishment’s narrative that Donald Trump is radicalizing “uneducated” middle Americans and turning them into violent insurrectionists. And then there are, of course, all the ways the FBI directly tried to undermine and hinder Trump’s first term. Right-wingers are correctly deriding the establishment for panicking about Trump’s FBI doing to them what they have tried to do to him. But many—on both sides—go wrong when they present the Bureau as only recently, or imminently, being corrupted into serving the interests of those in power. That’s been its role since the beginning. Connor O’Keeffe ( @ConnorMOKeeffe ) produces media and content at the Mises Institute. This commentary is republished from the Mises Institute.