USA – Cissy Houston, the mother of the late Whitney Houston and a two-time Grammy winner who performed alongside superstar musicians like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, has died, CBS News confirmed. She was 91. Houston died Monday morning in her New Jersey home while under hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston said in a statement. The acclaimed gospel singer was surrounded by her family.

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness,” Pat Houston said in the statement, calling her mother-in-law “the matriarch of our family.” She said Cissy Houston’s contributions to popular music and culture are “unparalleled.”  “Mother Cissy has been a strong and towering figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction, who cared greatly about family, ministry, and community. Her more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts.”

Houston was in the well-known vocal group the Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warrick. The group sang backup for a variety of soul singers including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, The Drifters and Dionne Warwick. The Sweet Inspirations appeared on Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and sang background vocals for The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the song “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” in 1967. In the same year, Houston worked on Franklin’s classic “Ain’t No Way.”

Houston’s last performance with the Sweet Inspirations came after the group hit the stage with Presley in a Las Vegas show in 1969. Her final recording session with the group turned into their biggest R&B hit “(Gotta Find) A Brand New Lover,” a composition by the production team of Gamble & Huff, who appeared on the group’s fifth album, “Sweet Sweet Soul.”

During that time, the group occasionally performed live concert dates with Franklin. After the group’s success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career where she flourished. (CBS)…[+]

KYIV –  Ukraine’s military says it has carried out a strike on a large oil terminal off the coast of the occupied Crimean Peninsula, the latest in a wave of attacks targeting Russian-controlled energy facilities.

Officials in Kyiv said the country’s missile forces launched the strike on the Feodosia terminal – the largest oil processing facility on the peninsula – in an attack overnight.

Russian-installed officials in Crimea have not confirmed the strike, but did acknowledge a fire at the facility. No casualties from the blast have been reported.

A municipal-level emergency has been declared, with 300 people being evacuated from Feodosia due to the blaze, the state-run Tass news agency reported.

Footage circulating on social media appeared to show smoke rising over the Feodosia terminal. Local Russian-installed officials told RIA Novosti that efforts to extinguish the fire were ongoing.

Meanwhile, the defence ministry in Moscow said that 12 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the peninsula overnight out of a total of 21 launched by Kyiv.

In a statement announcing the attack, Ukraine’s general staff said that oil products shipped from the terminal were being used to “meet the needs of the Russian occupation army”. Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.

The facility was previously hit in a Ukrainian drone strike in March.

Kyiv has said that its strikes on Russian-energy facilities are fair retaliation for Moscow’s strikes on its own energy infrastructure, which have frequently plunged millions into darkness.

At least 80% of Ukraine’s thermal power and one third of its hydroelectric power generation has been destroyed in Russian attacks, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in June.

The Crimea blast comes as officials in Kyiv said the air force shot down 32 drones and two missiles launched towards the Ukrainian capital overnight by Russia.

Air force officials said one Kinzhal missile managed to evade air defenses and hit an area around the Starokostiantyniv airfield in the Khmelnytskyi region.

Starokostiantyniv has come under consistent Russian fire over the summer, with Moscow claiming the base houses F-16 fighter jets donated by the West.

Around 65 F-16s have been pledged by Nato countries since US President Joe Biden first authorised willing European allies to send them to Ukraine in August 2023. (BBC)…[+]

PARAMARIBO – The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture recently decided to give pupils from the primary school, who could not participate in the second chance project that was carried out in August 2024, another change to participate in this project. The pupils who got a low score for Dutch and match will be given another chance to raise their score so that they can pass to the next grade. From October 4th until October 9th the pupils will review the lessons from the third semester, and in particular the ones from July. On October 11th the pupils will take the math test and on October 14th they will take the Dutch test. The teachers from the primary schools will be in charge of putting these tests together and correcting the test papers. The school principals will then send the results of these tests to the inspectors. The results will be officially announced on October 20th. Not everyone is happy about the plan to give the pupils another chance in October. Dozens of teachers pointed out that it is not fair because while some pupils participated in the second chance or summer school project, others chose to stay home to enjoy their summer vacation. Parents also complained about the redo of the second chance project. A concerned mother explained that she had to drop her daughter off at school for two whole weeks in the summer vacation, and that she was shocked to hear that the program is also being carried out in October. “I had to take a taxi from Pont to Flora to drop my daughter off at school every day. I had to pay the cab fare every day, while she could have attended the same lessons in October,” said the woman…[+]