News24 Top Stories

Two Home Affairs officials, who allegedly ran a lucrative passport fraud scheme in which foreign nationals paid up to R100 000 for South African passports, appeared in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on Monday, where they were granted R5 000 bail.

Michael Beaumont argues that the DA’s Electoral Court challenge to PR list rules is a self-serving manoeuvre by a party that has long relied on the very provision it now attacks.

South Africa has no law governing pre-election opinion polls, and scholars warn they can distort voter choices and erode electoral trust. Regulation is needed, but to what degree is up for debate.

Judgment has been reserved in the bail application of the Mthatha businessman from whose company premises the police seized 140 firearms last week while 135 remained unaccounted for.

While Cape Town sweltered through temperatures of up to 35°C on Wednesday amid unusual but not unprecedented September heat, parts of Johannesburg and surrounding provinces were battered by severe storms, hail and damaging winds, illustrating the country’s split weather personality on the cusp of summer.

The question of why the National Student Financial Aid Scheme paid four intermediaries a whopping R615 million to manage student accommodation – when arguably just one could have done the job – was a burning issue in Parliament.

The president talks tough, yet again, on fighting gender-based violence, and the Springboks look to bounce back against Italy and win the Nations Championship – this is News24’s Unread.

Thursday will bring with it mostly cloudy and cool conditions, with scattered thundershowers. It will be very hot in places in the Western Cape and warm to hot in the Eastern Cape, according to the South African Weather Service.

Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero told councillors on Wednesday that the rainfall in the City was a blessing for their political term.

The Eastern Cape High Court in Gqeberha has found Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality in breach of a housing agreement it has failed to honour for nearly three decades, ordering it to finally take concrete steps to complete a development that has left thousands of indigent families without fully serviced homes.

Bernhard Bredell watched the family’s Helderberg farm being sold and the vines ripped out. Then he went back to the original Bredell cellar to prove Sinai Hill’s worth, not as a Bredell, but as a Scion of Sinai.

News24 brings you the top stories of the day, summarised into neat little packages. Read through quickly or listen to the articles via our customised text-to-speech feature.

An expectant Buffalo City mother bought several items of clothing ranging from 0 to 3 months in anticipation of her baby boy’s birth. But after giving birth at the Life Beacon Bay Hospital in KuGompo, she had to go back to the outlets to exchange them because her baby, Izimakhe, needed clothes ranging from 3 to 6 months.

The collapse of Knysna’s council has plunged the municipality into another political crisis, with councillors unable to elect a new mayor at what was supposed to be the final ordinary council meeting of the current term.

Weeks after Speaker of the National Assembly Thoko Didiza reinstated Malusi Gigaba as co-chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Defence, the ANC quietly removed him this week.

Five years after the fact, EFF leader Julius Malema finally apologised to Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Elias Matojane for using his position on the Judicial Service Commission to challenge the judge for finding against his party in a defamation case.

Western Cape police have offered a R100 000 reward for information that leads to the successful prosecution of those responsible for the deadly shooting at a KwaNdelu Shisanyama in Lwandle, Strand, which left 10 people dead and 11 others injured.

The co-pilot of a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv is believed to have stabbed the captain in a possible attempted “terror attack” on Wednesday, forcing the plane to divert to Saudi Arabia, where it landed safely, three Israeli officials said.

Two advocates defending former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and 21 others in the R320 million Durban Solid Waste tender fraud trial are no longer part of the legal team representing seven men accused of the murders of rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend, Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane.

Fixed-term contracts expose employers to risk. No matter how the contract is worded, an employer who relies on the fact that a fixed-term contract has expired may face an unfair dismissal claim if the employee had a reasonable expectation of renewal, write Jan Truter and Barney Jordaan.