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The executive governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Biodun Oyebanji, has approved a work-from-home arrangement for civil servants in the state in a bid to further cushion the effect of the current economic situation on workers.

According to a statement by the Special Adviser on Media to the Governor, Mr. Yinka Oyebode, under the new arrangement, officers on level 01- 07 will work from home three days a week.

Also, officers on level 08- 12 are to work from home two days in a week, while officers on level 13- 17 will work from home once in a week.

The new arrangement, which commences on Monday, September 9, 2024, excludes essential workers like teachers, core health workers in the hospitals and security personnel among others.

According to the Governor’s directive, each MDA is expected to produce workable schedule for staff in order to ensure that the new work- from- home arrangement does not jeopardize effective service delivery.

The arrangement will be in place tor a period of two months and is subject to periodic review in line with prevailing circumstances.

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A Republican-led legal battle against federal student loan forgiveness has left borrowers in a place that’s become familiar over the past few years: with their financial fates in the hands of judges.The latest twist came Thursday when a Georgia court ordered a temporary halt to President Joe Biden’s proposal for a second attempt at broad student loan forgiveness while the case is decided. The proposal would cancel at least some of the debts held by 30 million borrowers with federal loans.

Biden and his opponents have battled over the president's student loan programs for the past several years. Since 2021, the Department of Education under Biden has made numerous rules changes to the federal student loan system aimed at making it easier for borrowers to have their loans forgiven.

The most recent attempt at outright forgiveness targeted certain types of borrowers, including borrowers who owe more than what they did when they started repaying their loans and those who would qualify for forgiveness under existing programs but haven’t applied.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey this week filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the program, which, according to a notice published by the Department of Education, was set to go into effect as soon as October. 

Biden and other Democrats argue that Americans should be able to benefit from higher education without being financially crushed by student debt for the rest of their lives. The administration has forgiven at least $168.5 billion for 4.8 million borrowers, including public servants, people with disabilities, and borrowers who attended for-profit colleges that were later shut down.But while some of Biden’s efforts have succeeded, others have been felled in the courts. The biggest blow came in June 2023 when a coalition of Republican-led states, led by Missouri, got the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to strike down a Biden program that would have forgiven up to $20,000 per borrower. 

After that defeat, Biden began efforts to offer student loan relief through other means, including launching the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan. This plan forgives the debts of borrowers who make income-based payments for 10-25 years, depending on how much was borrowed and whether the loans were for graduate school.

The department also gave broad-based student loan forgiveness a second try through an administrative rulemaking process, resulting in the plan blocked on Thursday.Conservatives have opposed student loan forgiveness, arguing that it’s unfair to people who already paid their loans back and that policy should instead focus on lowering the cost of college. In court, forgiveness opponents have challenged the authority of the administration to cancel loans, arguing that they shouldn’t be allowed to without Congressional legislation.The Biden administration has argued that Congress has already authorized the Secretary of Education to cancel student debt. In defending the SAVE plan and the latest broad forgiveness program, the administration points to the 1965 Higher Education Act establishing the federal student loan program.

The lawsuit adds more uncertainty for borrowers, some of which were already affected by a previous court decision that at least temporarily blocked the SAVE repayment plan.

Some 8 million borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan are in forbearance, with no payments required, while the legal battle plays out. Both the SAVE and forgiveness cases could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.

“The best advice I can give borrowers right now is to not make any drastic decisions,” said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit group that advises borrowers. “This situation is truly uncharted territory and it’s going to take the Department of Education and the courts some time to work this through.”

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The Federal Government says there are no age restrictions for taking the National Examination Council (NECO) and West African Examination Council (WAEC).

Speaking in Abuja on Friday, September 6, the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Tanko Sununu, said the government only restricted the age for sitting for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and entry into the university to 18 years beginning from 2025.

“As regards this matter, we have made ourselves clear in different fora. But the issue kept recurring here and there. Actually, nobody among the two of us, the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, nor the Minister of State, stated anything about the age limit for WAEC, NECO or NABTEB.

People just pick up some remarks the Minister made, misinterpreted the statements to imply that age restriction has been placed for WAEC and NECO examinations.

What we have been mentioning in the past was the entry age for University, candidates sitting for the UTME. We have made this clear several times, and this is in line with the National Policy on Education.

The document stated that a child is expected to enter Primary School at six years, and he’s expected to spend six years in that school making it 12 years, three years each in junior and senior secondary schools, making it 18 years. That’s what is contained in the National Policy on Education document.

The Policy further stated that a child should learn in the language of the immediate environment or mother tongue up till primary three before English language could be introduced in subsequent years. That has facilitated learning at that level because you can easily communicate,” Sununu said.

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Broadcom (AVGO) shares fell after the closing bell Thursday, sliding following quarterly results that swung to a loss due to increased merger-related expenses.

The semiconductor manufacturing company posted a net loss of $1.875 billion, compared to a profit of $3.3 billion in the year-ago quarter. Adjusting for $1.5 billion in amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets and other restructuring costs, Broadcom’s earnings were $1.24 per share.

The company projected fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $14 billion, which fell slightly short of the analyst consensus. CEO Hock Tan said the company expected full-year AI revenue to be $12 billion, "driven by ethernet networking and custom accelerators for AI data centers,"

Broadcom acquired software firm VMware in November 2023. "Broadcom's third quarter results reflect continued strength in our [artificial intelligence] semiconductor solutions and VMware," said Tan.

Shares of Broadcom slipped more than 6% in after-hours trading. They've risen substantially this year, climbing some 40%.

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After nearly three years of inflation reports grabbing all the headlines, data on the labor market is taking center stage in the eyes of financial markets and the officials who make decisions on interest rates.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic joined the list of Federal Reserve policymakers who have said they’re turning their attention as they decide when and how to cut interest rates. The Fed has a “dual mandate” for how it manages the U.S. economy—keep inflation under control and make sure as many people as possible have jobs.

Inflation has fallen in recent months, simmering not far from the Fed’s goal of a 2% annual rate. At the same time, cracks have started appearing in the formerly roaring labor market. 

“I have focused mainly on the price stability side of the mandate since inflation spiked in 2021, as we were clearly further from that goal than from the goal for maximum employment,” Bostic wrote. “But as the labor market has cooled in recent months, the balance of risks has shifted, and I am today giving basically equal attention to the maximum employment objective.” 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said much the same last month in a major policy speech.

The shift is a notable one. For the last three years, Fed officials have focused on inflation when making decisions about interest rates. Stocks often fluctuated with inflation news, at times rising when it looked like falling inflation would allow the Fed to cut interest rates, and falling when inflation flare-ups pushed the expected date for rate cuts farther away. 

As inflation reports have gotten more routine, the labor market has gotten more attention. That's especially been the case since the July jobs report showed a surprising increase in the unemployment rate and sent financial markets reeling amid concerns that the economy could be headed toward recession.

Investors will be closely reviewing the August jobs report, slated for release Friday morning, for fresh insights on the health of the economy as well as clues about how fast, and far the Fed might cuts its key fed funds rate in the months ahead.

Fed officials and economists are also monitoring the labor market for any sign of mass layoffs and recession as the economy grinds under the weight of high borrowing costs—the fed funds rate currently sits at its highest since 2001, the result of the Fed’s campaign of rate hikes intended to combat the post-pandemic surge of inflation. 

“Both investors and policymakers tend to be preoccupied and fixate on something, and at this point, the fixation is indeed on the labor market,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial. 

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Police operatives in Bayelsa State have arrested a 24-year-old man, Godgift Bai, alleged to be behind the circulation of a viral ‘private’ video of a young girl on social media platforms.

The command’s spokesperson, ASP Musa Mohammed, in a statement on Friday, September 6, said the suspect was arrested in Yenagoa, the state capital, on September 3, 2024.

The arrest of the suspect who hails from Ogbolomabiri in Nembe Local Government Area, follows a thorough investigation by the Cyber Crime Unit, acting on the directive of the Commissioner of Police, CP. Alonyenu Francis Idu.

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