Names and faces
▮ Afrobeats musician Davido is seeking legal action against a media outlet that published a fake news report April Fools’ Day claiming he had been “detained” after a “cocaine haul” was “found in his private jet.” The article was published Monday by K24, a TV station in Kenya. The report claimed the three-time Grammy nominee was “apprehended by the Anti-Narcotics Police Unit” after a Sunday search of his private jet at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Kenya’s directorate of criminal investigations took to X (formerly Twitter) in an effort to dispel the claims, branding the story “fake news.” Davido said the reports had led to “a barrage of calls,” and while he had indeed been traveling, “I have never been arrested by anyone in any country for any crime in the world.” The K24 report made several headline-grabbing claims about large amounts of cocaine being hidden on the aircraft and other allegations of illegal drug use. The news outlet updated the article later Monday, writing in a photo caption: “This article is fictitious and only meant for April Fools’ Day.” The outlet has since deleted the story. “I want to assure my fans that these reports are entirely untrue,” Davido said Tuesday on social media post. The 31-year-old said he instructed his legal team to take action. K24 and the author of the report did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
▮ “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling did not break the law with tweets criticizing Scotland’s new hate speech law and referring to transgender women as men, police said Tuesday. Rowling opposes the law, which came into force Monday and makes it illegal to stir up hatred on the basis of characteristics such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity. Rowling is among critics who say the legislation could be used to silence so-called “gender-critical” feminists, who argue that rights for trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female. In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Rowling referred to several prominent trans women as men. Misgendering could be an offense under the new law, in some circumstances. Rowling posted that “if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested.” Police in Scotland said the force received complaints, but “the comments are not assessed to be criminal and no further action will be taken.”