The U.S. Customs and Border Protection says its officials have seized boxes of long lashes from smugglers. The agency said teh seizure was made at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The eyelashes, numbering three thousand pairs, were discovered to be fake after officials determined they were illegally imported from China to New Orleans. Agency spokesperson Matthew Dyman told WVUE-TV that the four boxes of long lashes seized earlier in the week were scheduled for delivery at a local beauty supply store. Authorities said they hadn’t been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration and weren’t labeled with the distributor’s name or the manufacturer’s name, Dyman said.

No fewer than 350 lives were lost to boat mishaps in Nigeria in 2020. The disclosure was made in Borgu, Niger State, on Saturday by Joseph Ityav, Chairman of the Governing Council of the Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC). He was speaking at Malale in Borgu local government area of Niger State at the flag-off of the cutting of tree logs and removal of huge debris on Kainji and Shiroro Lakes. He said the project was being executed in partnership with the National Inland Waterways Corporation. Ityav blamed most of the mishaps on poor conditions of boats, overloading, unavailability of life jackets and the preponderance of tree logs on the waterways. He said that the cutting of the tree logs and removal of debris would reduce boat mishaps and the hardships faced by riverine communities. Managing Director of HYPPADEC, Alhaji Abubakar Yelwa, said the Commission would address ecological and environmental issues and loss of lives which resulted from the construction of the Kainji and Shiroro Dams. Kainji Dam was constructed on River Niger in 1964 at a cost of 209 million dollars and was inaugurated in 1968. Shiroro Dam was constructed also on the River Niger, in Kaduna State, southwest of Abuja in 1983. Yelwa commended President Muhammadu Buhari and the National assembly for signing the Act setting up HYPPADEC, which began operations in 2020 to address challenges of impacted communities. Sen. Abdullahi Sabi, Senate Deputy Chief Whip, said at the ceremony that HYPPADEC’s projects would help to address challenges faced by communities in the hydro-power generating areas. Sen. Sabi, who represented Sen. Gabriel Suswan, Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, said that the National Assembly would continue to support HYPPADEC to achieve its objectives. (NAN)

Ayetoro, an oil producing community in Ondo State, is on the verge of going into extinction. For more than a decade, the people have watched helplessly as their homes, means of livelihood and valuables are destroyed by ocean surge. Many elderly members of the community are said to have died of shock after losing all they had laboured for because of the problem. The people are pained that the federal government has continued to earn revenue from the community through oil exploration but has flagrantly ignored their pleas for help, INNOCENT DURU reports. Elderly indigenes suffer shock, die of high blood pressure How failed NDDC contracts compounded community’s woes State, federal government officials dodge enquiry When Kayode Okenla, an indigene of Ayetoro, a riverine community in Ondo State completed the construction of his seven-bedroom apartment recently, it was in the hope that he would never worry again about paying rent. Like a bed set free from the hunter’s snare, he leaped in ecstasy, punching the air repeatedly in full admiration of his personal accomplishment. “This is great!” he said gleefully to himself. His status also changed instantly as friends, associates and family members teased him with the title of the latest landlord in town. But his joy was short-lived as an ocean surge, a menace the community has contended with for more than a decade reared its ugly head again. Before his very eyes, Kayode watched helplessly as the sea launched a ferocious attack on his exquisite building, sweeping away everything in it with the force of a hurricane. “From a proud owner of a well-furnished seven-bedroom building that cost me more than N7 million, I have suddenly become homeless,” he said regretfully. “I have already relocated to my mother’s house, but I suffered high blood pressure after the incident.” Besides the building, Kayode also lost some fish ponds he had in the premises as well as his farm located close to the building. “It was the first time I would experience a loss of that magnitude. Everything I lost put together would be worth more than N15 million,” he said. Checks made across the community revealed that the hitherto lively area had become a shadow of itself. The sea, which had provided many of them with means of livelihood, had turned against them like a dreaded foe. Carcasses of buildings destroyed by the sea surge littered the area. Ayetoro, an oil producing community in Ondo State, is on the verge of going into extinction. For more than a decade, the people have watched helplessly as their homes, means of livelihood and valuables are destroyed by ocean surge. Many elderly members of the community are said to have died of shock after losing all they had laboured for because of the problem. The people are pained that the federal government has continued to earn revenue from the community through oil exploration but has flagrantly ignored their pleas for help, INNOCENT DURU reports. Elderly indigenes suffer shock, die of high blood pressure How failed NDDC contracts compounded community’s woes State, federal government officials dodge enquiry When Kayode Okenla, an indigene of Ayetoro, a riverine community in Ondo State completed the construction of his seven-bedroom apartment recently, it was in the hope that he would never worry again about paying rent. Like a bed set free from the hunter’s snare, he leaped in ecstasy, punching the air repeatedly in full admiration of his personal accomplishment. “This is great!” he said gleefully to himself. His status also changed instantly as friends, associates and family members teased him with the title of the latest landlord in town. But his joy was short-lived as an ocean surge, a menace the community has contended with for more than a decade reared its ugly head again. Before his very eyes, Kayode watched helplessly as the sea launched a ferocious attack on his exquisite building, sweeping away everything in it with the force of a hurricane. “From a proud owner of a well-furnished seven-bedroom building that cost me more than N7 million, I have suddenly become homeless,” he said regretfully. “I have already relocated to my mother’s house, but I suffered high blood pressure after the incident.” Besides the building, Kayode also lost some fish ponds he had in the premises as well as his farm located close to the building. “It was the first time I would experience a loss of that magnitude. Everything I lost put together would be worth more than N15 million,” he said. Checks made across the community revealed that the hitherto lively area had become a shadow of itself. The sea, which had provided many of them with means of livelihood, had turned against them like a dreaded foe. Carcasses of buildings destroyed by the sea surge littered the area. And it would seem that the sea was not done yet with its rage in spite of the enormous havoc it had wreaked. The more it looked at its victims, the more furious and itchy it appeared set to do more damage. At regular intervals, waters from the sea converge on a spot like street gangsters and fiercely barge into the community. Each time they do, more houses and other valuables are destroyed, more residents are displaced and more tears rolled down the cheeks of the people. For Kayode, the possibility of building another house is high because he is a young man. But the same cannot be said of 74-year-old Pa Emmanuel Lemamu who also lost the house he had struggled to build during his youthful days. “I have become a refugee in my own land. I am no more in my own house. I am telling you the truth and nothing but the truth. Hundreds of houses have been destroyed in Ayetoro now. I built my house in 1956 but when the sea incursion came, it pulled down the building,” he said with a grimace. “The damage is going on as we speak. Many people are packing the few