Bill Cosby’s lawyers will ask a Pennsylvania State judge on Tuesday to keep more than a dozen women who have accused the comedian of sexual assault off the witness stand. More than 60 women have accused the 79-year-old entertainer, once beloved by Americans as the father on the 1980s TV hit “The Cosby Show,’’ of sexually assaulting them.

He was alleged to have often done it after plying them with drugs and alcohol, in a series of attacks dating back decades. Only one of those claims resulted in criminal charges, filed against Cosby days before the statute of limitations was to expire.

Andrea Constand, a former basketball coach at Cosby’s alma mater Temple University, said he gave her pills before assaulting her at his Pennsylvania house in 2004. Prosecutors have asked Judge Steven O’Neill of Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania to allow 13 other women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault to testify at the trial. By so doing they said it would go to show that it was a pattern the comedian had adopted over the years. Cosby has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

O’Neill has scheduled two days of hearings on the proposed witnesses and other pre-trial matters. In general, prosecutors are barred from introducing evidence of a defendant’s unrelated prior bad acts for fear it could prejudice the jury. On rare occasions, however, judges will allow it if the evidence shows a clear and longstanding pattern of behaviour.

Prosecutors are also seeking permission to use Cosby’s sworn testimony from a deposition during Constand’s 2005 civil lawsuit, in which Cosby acknowledged providing women with medication and then having consensual sexual encounters with them. Cosby’s lawyers have asked O’Neill to bar that deposition from the trial, arguing that Cosby only agreed to testify; after the then-Montgomery County district attorney assured him no criminal charges would be brought. In addition, his lawyers have mounted yet another attempt to dismiss the case, this time based on the argument that prosecutors waited too long to bring the case. In court papers filed last week, his attorneys said Cosby is legally blind and has memory problems, preventing him from fully participating in preparing his own defense.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has intensified investigations into N3bn fraud allegedly committed by Malam Gimba Ya’u Kumo, who recently got married to the second daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari, SaharaReporters reports.

According to the news platfrom, Malam Kumo allegedly committed the crime while he was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria.

It was learnt that the new son-in-law to the president had been under probe before his marriage but has now fallen into the spotlight of the anti-graft agency recently.

Sources also revealed that the President has vowed not to get involved in the case as the EFCC continues to find incriminating evidences against him.

Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has said that it was impossible for his former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, to have stolen $2.2 billion as being accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Responding to questions after his lecture on Youth Entrepreneurship at the famous Oxford Union in the United Kingdom, former President Goodluck Jonathan, said: “They said the National Security Adviser (Sambo Dasuki) stole $2.2billion. I don’t believe somebody can just steal $2.2 billion. We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought lots of weapons for the army and so on and so forth and you are still saying 2.2 billion, so where did we get the money to buy all those things?

“Yes, there were some issues. Yes, there are still corruption issues but some of it were over blown. I’d say exaggerated and they give a very bad impression about our nation. You cannot say the national security adviser stole $2.2billion. It is not just possible.”

To avoid sounding confrontational with the current government, Mr Jonathan explained that some of the corruption cases were still in court and would rather allow the legal processes to reveal the facts of the matter.

He said: “One thing about the issue of corruption is that these matters are in court, let’s allow some of these processes to end. Lately some judges’ (homes) were also invaded. There are so many things involved and we have to follow up these matters to conclusion before we know the fact. “I don’t want to be seen a former president challenging what the sitting government is doing so I have decided to keep quiet for the court to look into them.”

He said allegations of corruption were not unique to his administration or the country. He said: “You will see that it has become a major topic whenever there is a change of government … I am not saying there is no corruption in Nigeria, there is corruption.

If you look at corruption there is almost no country that is free, the degree varies, the perception varies. “Transparency International talks about the way corruption is being perceived in different economies, why do we talk about the way corruption is being perceived, it depends on the issue raised in the media every day.”

Most inmates of a northern Haitian prison escaped on Saturday after killing a guard and stealing firearms. The authorities that launched a manhunt with support from UN peacekeepers for the 174 fugitives on Sunday disclosed this in Arcahaie (Haiti).

A witness said the police set up checkpoints on roads leading from the prison and detained several people without identity cards. The prison official said on condition of anonymity that the 266 inmates of Arcahaie prison do not wear uniforms, making it easier for escapees to mingle outside.

The official said that 11 inmates were caught during the break, which happened during a period when some were bathing. He said the inmates broke into an area used by the guards, stealing at least five rifles among other weapons and shot dead one guard.

Haiti’s Minister of Justice, Camille Edouard-Junior, said one prisoner died after falling off a wall and hitting his head during the escape from the Arcahaie prison. “One guard was killed during the incident,” Edouard Junior told Reuters.

“Three prisoners were wounded, including one who died as a consequence of his wounds,’’ he said. Edouard-Junior said in the aftermath of the escape, the guard’s bloodied body lay at the prison and discarded sandals were scattered on the ground.

Lagos State Government may soon join the growing number of states including Edo, Ogun and Anambra that have imposed death sentence on kidnappers.According to a private member bill sponsored by the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mr. Mudashiru Obasa, “any person, who kidnaps, abducts, detains or captures or takes another person by any means or tricks with intent to demand ransom or do anything against his/her, will commit an offence, and liable to a conviction of death sentence.

The bill, which is titled: ‘A bill for a law to provide for the prohibition of the act of kidnapping and for other connected purposes,’ went through a public hearing in the State House of Assembly, yesterday. Attempt to kidnap was also criminalized under the bill and it was suggested that such a person would be committed to life imprisonment. Also, the bill is against false representation to release a kidnapped or abducted person under Section 4, and this attracts seven years imprisonment.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, Public Petition and LASIEC, whose committee handled the public hearing, Hon. Adefunmilayo Tejuosho, had earlier said in her welcome address that the Bill was necessary to curtail kidnapping in the state. “We need laws to safeguard the citizens. We looked at the law on kidnapping and we felt that it should be amended to curb the crime,” she stated.

Major internet services including Twitter, Spotify and Amazon suffered service interruptions and outages on Friday as a US internet provider came under sustained cyber attack.

The internet service company Dyn, which routes and manages internet traffic, said that it had suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its domain name service shortly after 1100 GMT.