America's oldest teacher at 102

                                                            THE 74/VIA YOUTUBE

America's oldest teacher turned 102 on Tuesday, and is still going strong.

Agnes Zhelesnik works 35 hours a week at the private Sundance School in New Jersey, teaching very young students how to cook and sew.

The Watchung resident, who began working as a teacher when she was 81, has no plans to stop anytime soon.

"These children have to grow up to be a hundred first," she cracked to the Courier News of Bridgewater on Friday, when she was still 101. "I am going to stay as long as I can, make them happy as good as I can. Who could get it better?"

Zhelesnik teaches pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade students at the North Plainfield school. She is known at the school, where her daughter also works, as "granny."

At the birthday celebration at the school on Friday, her daughter, granddaughter and 18-month-old great-granddaughter were also present.

"She is an icon in this school," Principal Benjamin Fox told the paper. "Besides the fact that she feeds everyone and makes the school smell wonderful, she just makes everybody smile. They are always hugging her. It's like a family and she is the granny of our family."

With News Wire Services

Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman show new prison hairstyle

                    FEDERAL SOCIAL READAPTATION CENTER

A new mugshot shows the Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, Joaquin Guzman, with a shaven head and no mustache.

The look is a far cry from his now-famous photo shaking hands with Sean Penn, where Guzman rocked a spiffy blue shirt, thick 'stache and full head of hair.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone released the full 17-minute interview Guzman recorded shortly before his capture Friday.

In the recording Guzman, responding to questions Penn sent by Blackberry Messenger, said "no sir" when asked if he considered himself a violent person.

“Look, all I do is defend myself. Nothing more. But do I start looking for trouble? Never,” Guzman said.

This week the Mexican government began the long process of extraditing Guzman to the U.S. to face trial.

The handoff will probably take “one year or longer,” the head of Mexico’s extradition office, Manuel Merino, told Radio Formula on Monday.

It’s unclear where Guzman would be brought to justice once he arrives in the U.S. He has two separate arrest warrants in California and Texas.

Those warrants, which include charges of organized crime, embezzlement and murder, are in addition to indictments in Illinois, New York, Florida and New Hampshire.

Mexico’s willingness to extradite Guzman is a sharp turnaround from the last time he was captured, in 2014, when then-Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said the extradition would happen only after he finished his sentence in Mexico in “300 or 400 years.”

Guzman’s lawyers have already begun the legal effort against his detention and extradition.


With News Wire Services

Okorocha Intervenes In Lingering Fuel Crisis

                                                                 Rochas Okorocha

The Imo State Government has intervened in the lingering fuel crisis rocking the state over the past weeks.

The intervention came after the Independent Petroleum Marketers in Imo State shut down their stations and stopped dispensing fuel to the public in protest to an alleged intimidation and harassment of their members by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), according to Channel News.

In compliance with the Federal Government’s directive of ensuring that PMS is being sold at 86.50 Naira per litre, the DPR in Imo State embarked on a monitoring exercise to enforce this directive and forced most petrol stations to sell at 86.50 Naira per litre, said Channel News.

The action by the DPR angered the Independent Petroleum Marketers in the state as over 95 per cent of petroleum marketers shut down businesses to the public in what looked likes a protest.

They maintained that they do not buy the product at tank farms at government approved price and therefore, would not sell at 86.50 Naira per liter, or they will run at a loss.

Pastor on the run after raping and impregnating teenage girl

                              WEST WHITELAND TOWNSHIP POLICE

Jacob Malone, pervy Pennsylvania pastor, may have fled the state after he was charged last week with rape and institutional sexual assault, the West Whiteland Township police said.

The 33 years old, is on the run after raping and impregnating a teenage girl who apparently was lured around the country by the sicko for years, authorities say.

The young victim had first met Malone when he was a pastor at a church in Mesa, Ariz., when she was 12 years old. When she was 17, Malone invited her to stay with his family in Minnesota after he became a pastor at a local church, cops said. After moving to Chester County in Pennsylvania last year, the pastor again invited the teen to live with his family and even found a high school for her to attend.

Malone began sexually assaulting her last year while she was living with the pastor's family in Exton, cops say. In at least one incident Malone provided the girl with alcohol before he molested her, the West Whiteland Township police said.

The victim also claimed that Malone tried to have inappropriate contact with her when they lived in Minnesota, according to authorities.

Church leaders in Pennsylvania confronted Malone two months ago after learning about the girl's pregnancy and about another possible victim in another state, Philly.com reported. He has resigned from Calvary Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Downingtown, according to the news website.

"Our church's goal in difficult moments like this is to protect the innocents, first of all," Bill Bateman, a pastor at the church, told Philly.com Monday. "And, number two, we strive to bring about repentance and restoration of the offender.""Our church's goal in difficult moments like this is to protect the innocents, first of all," Bill Bateman, a pastor at the church, told Philly.com Monday. "And, number two, we strive to bring about repentance and restoration of the offender."

PDP Laments Dissemination Of Untrue Reports On Metuh

In a statement released and signed by Richard Ihediwa,Special Assistant to The National Publicity Secretary, said "the attention of the office of the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh has been drawn to desperations to use a section of the media to spur public sentiments against the PDP spokesman, who has been in the EFCC custody since last Tuesday".

Chief Metuh believes that the continued false reports in the media, the latest being the publication claiming that he told investigators that he would “rather starve than refund any money”, is part of the blackmail and scheme to pitch him against the public.

He said, the grand design to sway the public and derail the course of proper investigation started with misleading and malicious reports that Chief Metuh made away with N1.4 billion arms deal cash and had been receiving a monthly N4 million stipend from the Office of the National Security Adviser. 

When this deliberate falsehood could not be sustained, it was adjusted to him receiving N400 million from ONSA.

Richard said that, the office wishes to state categorically that Chief Metuh has fully cooperated with investigators within his constitutionally guaranteed rights. In exercise of his rights, he has since given his statement to the EFCC wherein he submitted that he received the sum of N400 million from the former President for an assignment, which he executed to the satisfaction of the former President.

He said in further exercise of his rights, Chief Metuh has also indicated his readiness to make public the nature of this assignment, but only in an open court in line with the laws of the land, and where his statement would not be distorted by anybody.

“Chief Metuh therefore believes that his continued incarceration and failure to charge him to court are deliberately intended to prevent him from telling his own story in the open court for all Nigerians to know.”

The Party wish to state that contrary to the impression that the issue of N400 million was a product of investigation, it was actually a product of Chief Metuh’s voluntary statement.

Chief Metuh had since informed that sometime in December 2015, the ONSA published an invitation to companies they believed executed contracts for it for a chat.

Upon ONSA invitation via a text message, Chief Metuh, regardless of the fact that he did not execute any contract for the Office, appeared before the ONSA panel, wherein he presented his company’s statement ofaccount showing that the sum of N400 million paid on the instruction of the ex-President for an assignment was traceable to the ONSA account.

Recall that Chief Metuh, even before visiting ONSA had at a media briefing acknowledged the receipt of N400 million from the ex-President for the exercise of the said assignment.

Following the developments, Chief Metuh, as a responsible citizen canceled his intended travels for the Yuletide and issued a statement wherein he noted his readiness for any invitation and investigation by the EFCC or any other agency of government for that matter.

“We are therefore worried at the continued media persecution where a citizen is being charged, sentenced and jailed in the court of the media instead of being charged to the law court as required by the law.”

The party  urges Nigerians not to lose sight of the sequence and inconsistencies in the investigation and publications regarding Chief Metuh’s case. The Party believe that in this case, the law must not be.