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A medical doctor has recounted how a man slapped his wife because she failed to hold their child still while he was trying to insert an IV line into the baby.

According the man’s outburst left him shock as he reflected on how the dynamics of what he witnessed might play out in their marriage.

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Christian Obi, a former Nigeria goalkeeper and head coach of Heartland FC, has di3d in a ghastly accident.

The fatal accident occurred on Friday, August 23, at Umunna, near Okigwe, Imo State, when the club’s players and officials were on their way to Abakaliki for the Ifeanyi Ekwueme TICO/SELECT Pre-season Tournament.

The club in a statement said: “The heart breaking day saw the Heartland FC team departing the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri for the preseason Tournament with enthusiasm at around 3:30pm in three vehicles but at about some minutes after 4pm, one of the vehicles rammed into a carelessly parked truck in its attempt to evade an oncoming vehicle.

The driver tried as he could but the impact of the collision caused a sudden shock to our coach, Christian Obi who was unconscious with a slight injury to his right leg upon evacuation from the badly affected part of the bus.

Coach Obi and other injured players were rushed to the nearby hospital at Okwelle in Onuimo LGA of Imo State but despite the best efforts of the medical personnel our revered coach gave up the ghost.

Coach Obi remains have since been deposited at the Federal University Teaching Hospital, (FUTH) morgue in Owerri while the injured have been referred to the same hospital for more proper care.”

Aged 57, Obi, who coached the team last season, was a Nigeria youth international goalkeeper who competed in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

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Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell spelled out in plain English what financial markets had already anticipated: The central bank is about to cut its benchmark interest rate.In a speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium conference Friday, Powell said it was time for the Fed to make a major shift in its economic balancing act in which it seeks to keep the fed funds rate high enough to prevent inflation from overheating and low enough to keep unemployment from rising. That means cutting the rate from its current range of 5.25%-5.5%, its highest since 2001, where it’s been held for more than a year in an effort to push inflation down. 

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell said. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”The Fed was already widely expected to cut the fed funds rate when its policy committee next meets in September. Recent economic data has shown that since 2022, the inflation rate has fallen from a 40-year high almost back to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, the unemployment rate has steadily risen, fueling worries that the economy could enter a recession if interest rates stay high. 

Financial market participants took Powell’s comments as a signal that steeper rate cuts are on the table.

Speculation focused on whether the Fed would open its rate cut campaign with a 0.25 percentage point cut or a steeper 0.5 percentage points. The odds of a larger cut rose to 34.5% late Friday morning, up from 24% the day before, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data.

Powell used the speech to give a broad overview of the Fed’s fight against inflation since March 2022, when the central bank began raising its benchmark interest rate to counteract a worrisome price spike for consumer goods and services. The inflation rate peaked in June 2022 at an annual increase of 9.1%, according to the Consumer Price Index, and has fallen since then to a 2.9% annual increase as of July.High interest rates are meant to combat inflation by raising borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards, car loans and other kinds of credit, discouraging borrowing and spending and allowing supply and demand to rebalance. 

Indeed, the housing market has slowed to a near standstill under high mortgage rates, and consumers have struggled to afford vehicles amid high interest rates on loans, prompting price cuts from dealers.Powell highlighted another aspect of high interest rates: they’re meant to signal the Fed’s determination to push inflation down. The theory goes that if the public believes inflation will be low in the future, people will feel less pressure to make financial decisions that would push up inflation. 

For example, if individuals believe inflation will stay high, they might make major purchases sooner to get ahead of price increases, stoking demand and prompting merchants to raise prices.According to surveys of public opinion, most people never believed inflation would stay high for very long, and Powell credited that psychological factor with helping inflation cool down without the recession or spike in unemployment that many economists had anticipated. 

“Disinflation while preserving labor market strength is only possible with anchored inflation expectations, which reflect the public's confidence that the central bank will bring about 2% inflation over time,” he said. “That confidence has been built over decades and reinforced by our actions.”

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Nestlé SA shares fell in Swiss trading Friday, a day after the chocolate maker replaced Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Schneider amid slowing sales.

Schneider, who also is resigning from the board, will be replaced on Sept. 1 by veteran company executive Laurent Freixe, who heads its Latin American operations.

During his eight years with Nestle, Schneider focused the Swiss firm "on high-growth categories like coffee, pet care and nutritional health products," the company said.

But Nestle shares have fallen almost 10% this year amid declining sales as increasingly frugal consumers watch their spending.

In a note titled "The start of a new era?" UBS analysts said the replacement of Schneider wasn't surprising given the Swiss firm's disappointing "operational and share price performances" in the last two-and-a-half years, as well as "an unusually high number of negative headlines."

During Schneider's tenure, Nestle navigated multiple scandals, including an ongoing investigation in France after two children died eating frozen pizza contaminated with E. coli.

Nestle shares slipped 1.2% to 88.40 Swiss francs in intraday trading Friday. Its American depositary receipts (ADRs), which trade Over-the-Counter (OTC), were up 4% about 30 minutes after the opening bell.

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