Ebo Taylor, a Ghanaian highlife music pioneer, died at the age of 90, while a Hong Kong media tycoon was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and the search for Nancy Guthrie entered its second week, according to reports on Monday, February 9, 2026. Meanwhile, a white supremacist who murdered 51 people in New Zealand sought to overturn his guilty plea, and Iran widened its crackdown on dissent.
Ghanaian musician Ebo Taylor, a key figure in the highlife genre, passed away on Sunday, a day after the launch of an Ebo Taylor music festival and exactly a month after his 90th birthday, as announced by his son, Kweku Taylor, according to The Guardian. Taylor was considered a definitive force behind the highlife genre and was compared to Fela Kuti for his impact on Ghanaian music. "The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music," Kweku Taylor said.
In Hong Kong, a court sentenced 78-year-old activist and publisher Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty under China's national security law, NPR reported. Lai was found guilty of violating the law late last year.
The search for Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today Show co-host Savannah Guthrie, entered its second week, according to NPR News. The 84-year-old grandmother was last seen by her family on January 31. The Guthrie family had reportedly received a message from an unknown source.
In New Zealand, Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in 2019, sought to overturn his guilty pleas, claiming he was irrational when he entered them, Sky News reported. Tarrant, 35, appeared in court via video link and cited prison conditions as the reason for his actions, calling them "torturous and inhumane."
Iran's security forces launched a campaign to arrest figures within the country's reformist movement, widening a crackdown on dissent, according to reports from NPR. This followed authorities suppressing nationwide protests with violence that resulted in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of detentions.
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