Author: Chronicle Editor

There is “mutual tension” between Chelsea and their manager Antonio Conte after the Italian told striker Diego Costa by text message that he is not part of the plans for next season. (Gazzetta dello Sport – in Italian) The club wish to patch things up with Costa, 28, who is willing to discuss his future, but Conte is refusing to back down. (Sun) Conte has also set a number of conditions which include a direct line of communication to owner Roman Abramovich, if he is to stay as manager at Stamford Bridge. (Daily Record) Also at Chelsea, contract negotiations with…

AC Milan say they have been left with a “bitter taste in the mouth” after teenage goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma turned down a new contract. The Italy keeper, 18, now looks likely to leave the club. Rossoneri chief executive Marco Fassone said the player had made a “definitive decision” not to renew his deal. “We were taken by surprise, as we had hoped Donnarumma would be the goalkeeper taking Milan into the future,” he added. “Naturally, the decision leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, but now we have to go forward.” Donnarumma – whose contract expires next year – broke…

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said that it was not prosecuting the President of the Senate Bukola Saraki in the recently concluded false declaration of assets case. In a series of tweets on its twitter handle @officialEFCC, the anti-corruption agency made it clear to Nigerians that it was not the prosecutor at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) trial. The EFCC also disowned counsel, Rotimi Jacobs saying that he is an independent anti-corruption lawyer to the state and could be counsel to any organisation. Twitter introduces new font, stylish icons During the two years trial of Saraki,…

Twitter has improved the experience of its users with a newly implemented font and icons, Chronicle NG has observed. The social media giant made the changes some minutes ago. The new Twitter font is Arial Bold and it appears to be size 10 or 11. The change in icons brings it pretty close to what we have on Instagram The Retweet, Follow and Like buttons now have something I will call a ‘sex appeal’. The same is applicable Home, Notification and Messages have also been modified. The icons are easy-on-the-eye and have got some captivating tilt to it. Putin offers…

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered asylum to the former director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), James Comey. Putin said that Comey’s release of records of his conversations with President Donald Trump equated to being an activist, like former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who lives in Russia under asylum. If Comey, who was fired by Trump, continues to be persecuted, “we will be ready to provide him political asylum,” Putin said on national television. NAN reports that on June 8, Comey accused President Donald Trump of firing him to try to undermine the FBI investigation into possible…

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says that the country’s inflation dropped to 16.25 per cent in May from 17.24 per cent in April. The NBS made this known in its “Consumer Price Index (CPI) May 2017″ report released on Thursday in Abuja. According to the bureau, this is the fourth consecutive decline in the rate of inflation since January. On a month-on-month basis, the bureau stated that the Headline index increased by 1.88 per cent in May 2017, 0.28 per cent points higher than the rate of 1.60 per cent recorded in April 2017. It stated that food inflation…

The father of a US student freed by North Korea this week says he does not believe the regime’s explanation for his son’s coma. The regime said Otto Warmbier, 22, went into a coma last year because of botulism and a sleeping pill he was given after his trial. His father, Fred, said there was no excuse “to deny him top notch medical care for so long”. Otto landed in Ohio on Tuesday and is being treated in hospital. Fox News drops ‘fair and balanced’ slogan The medical centre where he is being treated said on Thursday he suffered a…

The US news network Fox News has dropped its slogan “fair and balanced”. An executive told CNN that the decision had “nothing to do with programming or editorial decisions”. Last August, producers were asked to use the slogan “Most watched, most trusted” instead but there has been no official announcement of the change. Gabriel Sherman, the journalist, who broke the story tweeted that the slogan had been an “iconic tagline of the Roger Ailes era”. Mr Ailes, the founder and ex-chairman of Fox News, resigned last year after female employees made sexual harassment allegations against him, and died last month…

China has been putting pressure on Nigeria and four other countries to get Taiwan to rename its representative offices to avoid suggesting sovereignty, Taiwan’s foreign ministry has said in a statement. The pressure on Nigeria, Bahrain, Ecuador, Jordan and United Arab Emirates (UAE) came after Panama decided to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and to recognise China and its “One China” policy. “China is acting to suppress us in an impertinent way that has seriously offended the sensibilities of Taiwan’s people,” the statement said. In Nigeria, the offices are called “Trade Mission of the ROC (Taiwan)”, in Bahrain the “Trade…

The estranged wife of incoming Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has been shot dead two days before his inauguration. Lipolelo Thabane, 58, was travelling home with a friend when both women were shot by an unknown assailant, the police say. The police add the motive is unknown and an investigation is continuing. Russia Inquiry: Robert Mueller probes Trump for obstruction of justice The couple had been living separately since 2012 and filed for divorce which hasn’t been granted yet. BBC southern Africa correspondent Karen Allen reports that neighbours claim there had been an incident earlier in the week when a…