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Drake: Dark Lane Demo Tapes review – rap’s whingeing king hits a dead end

OVO
There are flashes of skill and rawness in this odds-and-ends mixtape but it feels like a clumsy lunge at commercial success

In a world where the boundary between mixtapes and albums is becoming ever more blurred, the title of Drake’s latest album highlights its interstitial nature. That said, it’s still slightly misleading. There are tracks here that sound like demos – the mopey James Blake-isms of Chicago Freestyle are audibly unpolished – but for the most part, it ’s a way of collecting up leftovers and leaks, spare tracks he apparently has lying around the studio.

Those inclined to view Drake’s career with a cool eye might be surprised he has any spare tracks lying around the studio, given the state of his last album. Listening to Scorpion, 25 songs long, required a certain degree of mental stamina: you needed to steel yourself against the panicky sensation that you might die of old age before it ended. But it wasn’t the sheer quantity that was the problem so much as the quality of what was there. Scorpion had its moments but was so hopelessly uneven that it was easy to buy into the theory that its length was not due to its author’s teeming multiplicity of fantastic ideas, but an attempt to game the streaming services: more songs means more streams, more streams means a higher chart placing.

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Rich infected poor as COVID-19 spread around world...


Rich infected poor as COVID-19 spread around world...


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Secret Service has 11 current cases, as concerns about staff grow...







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NFL moves 2020 London games back to US during Covid-19 pandemic

  • Jaguars, Falcons and Dolphins had been set for London
  • Game set for Mexico City will now be played in United States

The NFL has decided to move its international games back to the US for the 2020 season as the sports world deals with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The league had scheduled four games in London and one in Mexico City, but they will now be moved back to the stadiums of the host teams.

Related: Don Shula, coach who led Dolphins to NFL's only perfect season, dies aged 90

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NFL great Brett Favre to repay $1.1m he received for speeches he didn't make

  • State auditor says Favre will repay money for no-show speeches
  • Hall of Fame quarterback faces no criminal charges after report

Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is repaying $1.1m in welfare money that he received for multiple speeches where he did not show up, the Mississippi state auditor said Wednesday.

Auditor Shad White said his office received $500,000 from Favre on Wednesday, plus a commitment that Favre will repay the other $600,000 in installments over the next few months.

Related: NFL tells teams to have facility reopening protocols in place by next week

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New Kaleidoscopic Map Details the Geology of the Moon 

The moon has seen a lot in its 4.5 million years of life, and a detailed new geologic map serves as testament.




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'I wanted something 100% pornographic and 100% high art': the joy of writing about sex

As authors from Chaucer to Hollinghurst have shown, sex reveals our emotions, instincts and morals. The question is not why write about sex, claims author Garth Greenwell, it’s why write about anything else?

There is a widely held belief, among English-language writers, that sex is impossible to write about well – or at least much harder to write about well than anything else. I once heard a wonderful writer, addressing students at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, say that her ideal of a sex scene would be the sentence: “They sat down on the sofa …” followed by white space. This is a prejudice I can’t understand. One of the glories of being a writer in English is that two of our earliest geniuses, Chaucer and Shakespeare, wrote of the sexual body so exuberantly, claiming it for literature and bringing its vocabulary – including all those wonderful four-letter words – into the texture of our literary language. This is a gift not all languages have received; a translator once complained to me that in her language there was only the diction of the doctor’s office or of pornography, neither of which felt native to poetry.

More than this, surely it is absurd to claim that a central activity of human life, a territory of feeling and drama, is off-limits to art. Sex is a uniquely useful tool for a writer, a powerful means not just of revealing character or exploring relationships, but of asking the largest questions about human beings.

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The Motion of the Body Through Space by Lionel Shriver review – the cult of fitness

Shriver’s contentious views on diversity thread through the story of a couple’s strained relationship with exercise

Lionel Shriver’s scabrously funny 15th novel presents a dyspeptic view of people in thrall to exercise. In 2013 Shriver’s own daily regime involved “130 press-ups, 200 side crunches, 500 sit-ups and 3,000 star jumps … The jumps take 32½ minutes, or three every two seconds”. The Motion Of The Body Through Space was written, she recently revealed, after she realised that she may be more dedicated to her exercise than to her writing.

The protagonist, Serenata Terpsichore (“rhymes with chicory”), is a 60-year-old woman from upstate New York with a beguiling voice and ruined knees. The former she puts to lucrative use as a voiceover artist and narrator of audiobooks. The latter are the result of a lifetime’s adherence to the doctrine of working out; in particular the belief that 10-mile runs are the key to longevity and good health.

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Sausage surprise! 10 unexpected ways to cook with bangers and frankfurters

Lockdown Britain has embraced the sausage, with sales up 33%. But there’s much more you can do with them than fry-ups, sandwiches and casseroles

When you Google famous quotes about sausages (say you need an opener for an article), one of the first comes from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who apparently once said: “Sausages are just funny. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it.”

Waller-Bridge is not wrong. Sausages are inherently funny. But their comedic value is also what holds them back. In the kitchen, no one takes sausages seriously. You very rarely see anyone serving sausages on Come Dine With Me; it would be an act of self-sabotage. You cannot win with sausages. They’re a culinary joke, unrefined, a bit naff.

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Dancing in the streets: VE Day celebrations in 1945 - in pictures

A selection of archive photographs to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day

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Asic looking at new investment product offered by Dunk Island developer Mayfair 101

Corporate watchdog’s move comes after a court earlier banned Mayfair 101 from advertising two other products

The corporate watchdog is looking into a new investment product issued by Mayfair 101, the group that has bought the cyclone-ravaged Dunk Island resort, after alleging in court that it had misled people by comparing its previous offerings to bank term deposits.

On Thursday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission issued a general warning against advertisements that compare fixed-interest products to bank term deposits as part of a broader crackdown on potentially misleading marketing by investment groups.

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Rupert Murdoch gives up his bonus as News Corp loses US$1bn in three months

Huge losses driven partly by fall in valuation of Australian pay TV service Foxtel and decline in news advertising revenue

Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire, News Corp, lost US$1bn in the three months to the end of March and is expecting more financial pain as the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis continues.

The chief executive, Robert Thomson, said there was a fresh wave of cost-cutting ahead for the group, including a “strategic review of our Australian newspaper holdings” that could signal further job losses at the company’s smaller mastheads.

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Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case postponed over Covid-19 and national security concerns

Victoria Cross recipient’s suit against Nine newspapers can’t be held until in-person hearings resume after coronavirus

The highly anticipated defamation trial brought by Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith against the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald will not go ahead next month after the federal court ruled a remote hearing under Covid-19 rules may breach national security.

The delay in the case came as justice Anthony Besanko said he had to consider whether to delay the trial despite a submission that Roberts-Smith and his family are suffering from the ongoing publication of articles by the Nine newspapers.

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Early access to superannuation paused as police freeze $120,000 in allegedly stolen funds

‘Sophisticated’ identity theft attack leads to Australian Tax Office stopping early super withdrawals until Monday

Allegations of identity theft involving 150 Australians have forced the government to pause the early release of superannuation, after police froze $120,000 believed to have been ripped off from retirement savings.

On Friday the assistant treasurer, Michael Sukkar, announced the Australian Tax Office would pause requests for early access of superannuation until Monday “out of an abundance of caution” to consider further anti-fraud protection.

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Ronaldo Souza dropped from UFC 249 card after testing positive for Covid-19

  • Ronaldo Souza pulled from event after positive coronavirus test
  • UFC 249 scheduled for Saturday night with no fans in building

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has withdrawn a bout from Saturday’s card in Jacksonville after middleweight Ronaldo ‘J’acare’ Souza and two of his cornermen tested positive for coronavirus, the mixed martial arts promotion said.

Related: UFC 249: Ferguson faces Gaethje as Dana White touts only game in town

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My favourite game: England v Australia, fifth Ashes Test, 1968 | Stephen Bates

A Derek Underwood-inspired England – assisted by the Oval’s resourceful spectators – beat the final-day flood, clock and Australian resistance to start my lifelong obsession with cricket

I was clearing out some old papers a while back when a small pink slip fell out. Even after 50 years I knew instantly what it was because it had been stuck to my bedroom wall when I was a teenager: indeed the old brown shadows of the tape were still there. It was the ticket for my first day’s Test cricket: the fifth Test against Australia at the Oval on 22 August 1968: Derek Underwood’s match and the game that started a lifelong obsession.

We joined my friend Matthew and his mother – two teenagers, what were we thinking of, taking our mothers? – and caught an early train from deepest Berkshire. London was a big, strange place where we rarely ventured and never as far south as SE11. We were square to the wicket and the players were so distant as to be indistinct, almost lost against the crowd.

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F1 on track for July resumption after drivers' association backs safety plan

  • Alex Wurz calls measures to deal with coronavirus ‘immaculate’
  • ‘F1 can be pioneer’ for other sports to follow, says GPDA chief

The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association is confident the precautions being taken by Formula One mean the sport stands every chance of resuming as planned in Austria on 5 July.

Alex Wurz, chairman of the GPDA, will reassure his members that Formula One has put the safety of everyone involved at the forefront of its plans to return to racing after attending a meeting with F1 and the FIA on Friday.

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Coronavirus Australia numbers: how many new cases are there? Covid-19 map, statistics and graph

Is Australia flattening the curve? We bring together all the latest Covid-19 confirmed cases, maps, stats and graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreak and track the impact of government response.

Due to the difference in reporting times between states, territories and the federal government, it can be difficult to get a current picture of how many confirmed cases of coronavirus there are in Australia.

Here, we’ve brought together all the figures in one place, along with comparisons with other countries.

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The three-step plan for reopening Australia after Covid-19 and what Stage 1, 2 and 3 looks like

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has detailed a gradual opening up of society with the timing the stages to be determined by the states

Scott Morrison and the chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, have laid out a three-step plan to reopen Australia after the coronavirus crisis. Morrison said he hoped step three could be achieved in July, but it would be up to each state and territory when they moved from one step to the next.

Below are some of the areas that will be opened up at each stage, according to the plan – and you can see the timeline for easing restrictions in each state here.

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Friday the 13th at 40: the maligned slasher that's haunted pop culture

The morality brigade loathed the hit teen horror on release but hockey mask-wearing villain Jason Voorhees has been with us ever since

Before production on the teen slasher A Long Night at Camp Blood had even started, before a final draft of the screenplay had even been submitted, thirtysomething writer-producer-director Sean S Cunningham decided to make an audacious statement. Not only would he use an advert in the industry paper Variety to confirm an inarguably ingenious title change but he would also use it to declare that his next film would be the most terrifying ever made, after a decade that saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Last House on the Left (which he also produced), The Exorcist and Halloween.

Related: Final Destination at 20: the bleakest teen horror film ever made?

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Covid-19 competence has given Australian governments some political capital. But there's a flipside | Katharine Murphy

Politicians have set a high bar for themselves – success on coronavirus has created community expectations that will be challenging to shift

“Let’s not give everything back, let’s not throw away all the progress we’ve made by letting our frustration get the better of us.” This was Daniel Andrews on Friday afternoon, shortly after national cabinet resolved to gradually restart economic and social activity by July.

The Victorian premier wanted people to understand he’d be hastening slowly – the message being here in the Massachusetts of Australia, we decide how quickly we’ll remove coronavirus restrictions. We don’t apply an arbitrary national average.

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U.S. researchers are training dogs to sniff out COVID-19

As businesses in the United States slowly begin reopening, researchers in Pennsylvania are turning to dogs to help them fend off a second wave of COVID-19.




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Liam Payne drops biggest hint yet that One Direction will reform for 10-year anniversary

The singer said the milestone would be a "very special moment".




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Ed Sheeran 'donates over £1 million to local charities'

The singer has reportedly handed over cash to good causes in his hometown of Suffolk




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Piers Morgan calls for Captain Tom Moore to be knighted after raising £7 million for the NHS

The 99-year-old is walking the length of his garden 100 times to raise funds




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Brian Dennehy dead: First Blood actor dies, aged 81

Hollywood actor Brian Dennehy has died at the age of 81, his daughter has said. The star, known for roles in films including First Blood and Cocoon, died on Wednesday due to natural causes. His daughter Elizabeth announced the news on Twitter.




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Captain Tom Moore tops the singles chart ahead of his 100th birthday

His rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone with Michael Ball is the fastest selling single of 2020 to date




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Celebrity photographers raise £80,000 with limited edition prints to protect frontline healthcare workers




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Simon Cowell wishes 'world hero' Captain Tom Moore a happy 100th birthday

The music mogul praised Captain Moore as "an inspiration"




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Radio 1 Live Lounge's charity cover of Times Like These hits number one

The star-studded recording featured the likes of Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne and Chris Martin




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Joe Wicks raises £200,000 for the NHS with YouTube PE lessons

The Body Coach said he feels "eternally grateful" for the health service




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Charlie Brooker says he 'always expected' something like Covid-19 pandemic ahead of Wipe special

Brooker says he's coping with the crisis "far better than I would have anticipated"




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Millie Bobby Brown supports 'nation's heroes' with £15,000 donation to NHS charities

Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown told NHS staff to "keep up the brilliant work" as she made a £15,000 donation to staff on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.​




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Andy Serkis plans live 12 hour reading of The Hobbit for charity

The star is best known for his role as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films




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Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston give away £1 million on Heart Radio

Key worker Tommy Norton was given the life-changing cash prize while pulled over in his van




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How Marco Polo botched its app upgrade and ended up with 1 star reviews

Messaging from app was different story than what consumers saw. Many turned to Twitter and App Store reviews to vent their rage

      




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Apple CEO Tim Cook references 1918 flu pandemic in commencement speech to Ohio State graduates

In his speech, Tim Cook offered advice for navigating challenging circumstances in the years ahead and talked about his career at Apple.

      




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Bye-bye, butterfly keyboard: Apple unveils 13-inch MacBook Pro with a better typing experience

Most of the improvements were performance-based. The new 13-inch laptop features double the storage and a speed boost, and prices start at $1,299.

      




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12 awesome tech hacks to save you money and time

Looking to get the most out of your tech? Here are a dozen software or hardware tips, tricks and shortcuts that might save you money, time and aggravation.

      




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Apple, Google will warn you if you've been exposed to COVID-19. Here's how.

Apple and Google give a first look at how public health apps will alert you if you've crossed paths with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

      




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Apple dominates the smartwatch market as sales rise despite COVID-19 pandemic, report says

Apple holds 55% market share in the smartwatch category followed by Samsung and Garmin. Sales rose despite the coronavirus pandemic.

      




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YouTube TV subscribers getting access to Viacom channels including VH1, BET, MTV and others

MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network and TV Land are among the channels launching on YouTube TV in the coming months.

      




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Apple to reopen stores in four states with COVID-19 face masks, temperature checks and social distancing

Apple will reopen stores in four states next week with precautions such as temperature checks, face masks and social distancing.

      




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10 COVID-19 Scams

Do not fall for these ????️