DURBAN – Family, friends and mourners have gathered in Adams Mission to pay their last respects to Celani Zungu.

Zungu, 38, was run over by an eThekwini Municipality water tanker.

He died last Sunday in Adams Mission, south of Durban, following a confrontation over water distribution.

Residents had reportedly tried to stop the tanker from leaving the area without supplying water to the community.

His aunt, Zodwa Mkhize, said the family is struggling to come to terms with the manner in which he died.

“This area was without water for a month. The truck came here and didn’t give water to everyone and that is how the altercation started.

“This is difficult to accept. He was fighting for the whole community to get water. The driver drove the truck over him twice. That tells us he wasn’t just trying o scare him, he intended to hurt Celani. This was not by mistake,” she said.

Mkhize said, as a family, they want the truck driver to go to court and explain why he did what he did.

JOHANNESBURG - A series of violent incidents at schools across the country has raised fresh concerns about the safety of learners and teachers.

In the latest incident, learners at Iphutheng Primary School in Alexandra, Johannesburg, were left traumatised after two-armed men allegedly entered the school on Tuesday.

It is understood the suspects entered the school during an alleged robbery. Preliminary reports indicate that several warning shots were fired, causing panic among learners and educators.

Learners and staff fled for safety, while laptops were reportedly stolen during the robbery.

The Gauteng Department of Education has confirmed the incident, while police have launched an investigation.

The incident comes just days after Gauteng Education MEC Lebogang Maile and police conducted search-and-seizure operations at several schools as part of a province-wide school safety campaign.

Police confiscated knives, scissors, vapes, a fork and drugs during the operation.

READ | Knives, drugs and absenteeism: Raid exposes anarchy at Gauteng school

Meanwhile, in KwaZulu-Natal, a 19-year-old learner was allegedly assaulted and killed on school premises on Tuesday.

Siboniso Landela, a learner at Vusumuzi High School in Isithebe, northern KwaZulu-Natal, was allegedly involved in a physical altercation with four other learners.

He was allegedly struck on the head during the fight and was later found unconscious.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda said four learners, aged between 15 and 20, had been arrested in connection with the incident.

Comment from the provincial education department will be added once received.

In the Western Cape, a Grade 10 learner died in June after he was involved in a fight with another learner at Bellville High School in Cape Town.

The learner was taken to hospital, where he later died. No arrests have been made in connection with the incident.

Last week, learners from the school were allegedly involved in another fight, this time with pupils from a nearby school. No serious injuries were reported.

A community leader said the fights were often linked to gang activity and cultural differences.

PRETORIA - The High Court in Pretoria has heard that former Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and her family could not have funded renovations to their Johannesburg home through cash withdrawals from their bank accounts.

NPA chief financial investigator Wynand Wessels told the Pretoria High Court that the family withdrew a combined R1.57-million between 2018 and 2020.

That amount falls short of what was allegedly spent on fixing the property.

Mapisa-Nqakula is accused of soliciting bribes from a logistics contractor.

Wessels also told the court his analysis of businesswoman Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndlovu’s bank statements showed she withdrew nearly R4.3-million between 2016 and 2020.

The state alleges that a portion of those funds was paid to Mapisa-Nqakula, allegations the former Speaker denies.

Under cross-examination, the defence questioned whether Wessels had any direct evidence that the money reached Mapisa-Nqakula. He responded that his findings relied on sworn statements made by Ntsondwa-Ndlovu.

The defence further indicated it would challenge Wessels’ status as an expert witness.

Earlier, the court heard testimony from former Mapisa-Nqakula spokesperson Joy Peter, who said Ntsondwa-Ndlovu felt abandoned by the Defence Department after her business came under scrutiny.

Peter, who described Ntsondwa-Ndlovu as both a close friend and fellow traditional healer, testified that the businesswoman was angry and believed the then-minister had failed to support her. According to Peter, Ntsondwa-Ndlovu said she would “not go down alone.”

Ntsondwa-Ndlovu has previously testified that her R104-million Defence Department logistics contract was cancelled before she was later awarded what she described as a replacement tender worth R79-million.

Although she has been granted indemnity from prosecution in this case in exchange for truthful testimony, the court also heard that Ntsondwa-Ndlovu is facing separate fraud charges in another court.

The trial resumes on Friday, when the state is expected to call a South African Reserve Bank official to testify about the movement of funds, even beyond South Africa’s borders.

• eNCA’s Moloko Moloto reports.

JOHANNESBURG - Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi will appear before the TRC cases inquiry on Friday morning.

Her testimony is expected to include matters relating to her role in dealing with apartheid-era crimes.

This includes the implementation of recommendations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Government says her participation signifies its commitment to supporting the Commission's work.

The Khampepe Inquiry is probing allegations of political meddling in the prosecution of TRC cases.

It has so far heard evidence from former justice officials, prosecutors and heads of the NPA.

WASHINGTON - It's often said that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

The saying rings true under a deal where three major US egg producers will have to crack into their supplies to settle price-fixing claims.

Under the settlement announced on Wednesday, the companies will donate 53 million eggs to food banks.

A coalition of 17 states sued the producers, alleging they secretly coordinated to influence daily egg price quotes published by a benchmark pricing service widely used in egg supply contracts.

"It is unconscionable that these businesses colluded against hard-working New Yorkers to raise the price of eggs just to line their own pockets," New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday in a statement announcing the settlement.

"The law is clear: price fixing of any kind is not tolerated in New York, or across our nation."

James said Cal-Maine Foods, Versova and Hickman's Egg Ranch began colluding as early as 2022.

In addition to the egg deliveries, the companies will pay $3.3 million to affected states and make changes to their practices to prevent future violations, the statement added.

Egg prices became a rallying point for Donald Trump in 2024's presidential election campaign as he sought to capitalise on voters' frustrations with the rising cost of essential items during his predecessor Joe Biden's presidency.

As avian flu spread like wildfire through the industry, poultry farmers were forced to cull 26 million birds, leading prices to skyrocket.

In the Big Apple, a box of 12 eggs reached an average price of $8.47, according to a note issued by the US Department of Agriculture in February 2025.

The State of New York is to receive 4,968,000 of the eggs.

The first delivery of 280,280 was made in Brooklyn, and the others are scheduled through October.

The other states in the deal are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

• AFP

SAN FRANCISCO - Google's head of AI, Demis Hassabis, will step down from his current role to become Alphabet's chief scientist amid a reshuffling at DeepMind that will also include a key engineer's departure.

Hassabis will take on two new titles, Alphabet announced on Wednesday: chair of DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet.

The change "will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including leaning into my work at Isomorphic to help cure disease," Hassabis wrote in a social media post.

Isomorphic Labs is an AI-powered drug discovery lab that spun out from DeepMind in 2021. In 2024, Hassabis won a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

As part of the shake-up, DeepMind's chief technology officer and chief AI architect Koray Kavukcuoglu will become the division's senior vice president and oversee its operations including the development of Google's flagship frontier models and products which are known as Gemini.

Longtime Google engineer Jeff Dean is also leaving the company after nearly three decades to "try something new, and we’re excited to support him in that," Google CEO Sundar Pichair said in a blog post announcing the news.

Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010, and four years later, Google bought the research lab for $650 million, according to reports at the time. His co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, is currently the chief of Microsoft's AI segment.

Google is competing for customers alongside other major AI developers including Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, as well as DeepSeek and Moonshot in China.

The industry is also chasing a theoretical milestone known as advanced general intelligence (AGI), which is a point when AI software matches the capabilities of human thinking.

"I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand," Hassabis wrote in Wednesday's blog post.

"With this backdrop, I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at (Google DeepMind), so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come," Hassabis continued.

Observers have been waiting for Google to announce a more powerful version of its AI model, called Gemini 3.5 Pro, which was supposed to launch in June but appears to be delayed.

Its shares closed 4 percent down Wednesday afternoon.

The leadership changes come amid a wider brain drain at Google.

In June, a top AI and engineering executive, Noam Shazeer, left for OpenAI, while senior researcher John Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Hassabis, jumped to Anthropic.

• AFP

TORONTO - Second seed Elena Rybakina, third seed Jessica Pegula and fourth-seeded Coco Gauff advanced to the third round of the WTA 1000 tournament in Toronto on Wednesday.

Australian Open champion Rybakina of Kazakhstan began her hardcourt run ahead of the US Open by outlasting Australian Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 after two hours and 33 minutes.

World number two Rybakina began the match by hitting six consecutive winners and finished with 58 winners, 15 of them acers, and 58 unforced errors, 16 of them double faults.

Rybakina hit back-to-back double faults to drop the second set and three double faults while serving for the match before advancing to next face 28th-seeded American Ann Li, who eliminated Canadian wildcard Kayla Cross 7-6 (7/2), 6-3.

Pegula, who lost Monday in a rain-hit Washington final, was also extended to three sets before advancing with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 triumph over Poland's Magdalena Frech in two hours and three minutes.

Next up for Pegula is a third-round match against Uzbekistan's Kamilla Rakhimova, who ousted when Czech Katerina Siniakova retired trailing 6-7 (1/7), 6-0, 5-2.

Another American, two-time Grand Slam winner Gauff, cruised into the third round by dispatching compatriot Kayla Day 6-2, 7-5.

World number five Mirra Andreeva also advanced in straight sets, the Russian teen cruising past Czech Karolina Pliskova 6-0, 6-2.

• AFP