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Frances Quinn: Great British Bake Off winner 'banned from Waitrose' after being accused of shoplifting

Show's 2013 winner was approached by store detectives after she appeared to not pay for her shopping




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Donald Glover to reunite with Community cast for virtual table read and Q&A

The show ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2015




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Have I Got News For You: David Tennant jokes that Eamonn Holmes lives in a 'tin foil bungalow'

Holmes came under fire for giving validity to a conspiracy theory linking 5G to coronavirus




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Andrew Scott took Fleabag role to stop being typecast as a villain

Scott was best known for playing Moriarty opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Sherlock'




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Tiger King's 'Texas-sized' team asks Donald Trump to pardon Joe Exotic

Joseph Maldonado-Passage was sentenced in January to 22 years in prison




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June Bernicoff death: Gogglebox star dies at the age of 82

Channel 4 star came to fame alongside her husband Leon, who died in 2017




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Roy Horn death: Magician of famous duo Siegfried and Roy dies aged 75 from coronavirus

'Roy was a fighter his whole life including during these final days,' his partner Siegfried Fischbacher said




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Phillip Schofield shares family photo during lockdown, appears to contradict reports he's moved out

TV presenter, wife Stephanie and their daughters played a game of Murder Mystery




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Car Seat Headrest: Making a Door Less Open review – Will Toledo in yet another guise

(Matador)
The indie maverick is a purveyor of all styles on his studiously eclectic 12th album

There’s a strange psychological cross-pollination going on behind the mask that Will Toledo, the artist mostly known as Car Seat Headrest, sports on the cover of his 12th album. Indulging an alter ego called Trait, Making a Door Less Open seeks out deliberately eclectic hybrids of his wry, lo-fi indie rock style (heir to the likes of Beck, Lou Barlow and Eels) and the satirical EDM he and his drummer Andrew Katz make as 1 Trait Danger. The result is much better than anyone who’s heard the latter, who often veer perilously close to a Bloodhound Gang remix project, might expect: Can’t Cool Me Down has a sultry 80s electropop feel, while the roil of self-deprecation and naked emotion on There Must Be More Than Blood underlines Toledo’s debt to LCD Soundsystem.

The new styles don’t all gel. The sleazy, fuzzy synth-rocker Hollywood is pleasingly punchy, but brought down by facile lyrics (apparently Tinsel Town isn’t the dreamland it’s cracked up to be – who knew?). Two sister songs – the lumpen alt-rock Deadlines (Hostile) and the Hot Chip-with-extra-dour Deadlines (Thoughtful) – fail to charm, while What’s With You Lately is a wan, mopey strum that seems to have wandered in from an entirely different, very bad record. But on the likes of the pulsing, uplifting Famous and Life Worth Missing, Toledo finds new energy.

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Tony Allen: the Afrobeat maverick who blazed a trail across the globe

The Nigerian musician was a restless creator who embraced the physicality of drumming and innovated until the end

Few musicians can claim to have invented a revolutionary rhythm, but then few are quite like the late Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen. Brian Eno called him “the greatest drummer that ever lived”, citing his style alongside James Brown’s funk breakbeat and the constant pulse of German band Neu! as the “three great beats of the 1970s”. Allen’s swirl of jazz, Yoruba and highlife was unlike anything the world had ever heard: a full-body polyrhythmic workout that would give most drummers sore wrists just thinking of it.

Allen came to prominence in Lagos alongside Fela Kuti. He started drumming in the late 50s while working at a radio station, looking to jazz icons such as Art Blakey and Max Roach for inspiration as he taught himself to play. In 1964 he met Kuti and they spent the next half-decade fine-tuning their fusion of west African party music and American funk and jazz, in the bands Koola Lobitos and, by 1969, Africa ’70. While Kuti, who died in 1997, is more well-known than his musical soulmate, he said that “without Tony Allen there would be no Afrobeat”.

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Dave Greenfield: putting beauty at the rotten heart of the Stranglers

The keyboardist, who has died aged 71 of coronavirus, upended the rules of punk with organ arpeggios and a moustache – and pointed the way to post-punk

Music writer Pete Paphides’ recent memoir, Broken Greek, contains a vivid description of its seven-year-old author encountering the Stranglers for the first time, during a 1977 Top of the Pops appearance. “They landed in the living room while I was totally unsupervised,” he writes, “and scared the shit [out] of me. By now I would have seen images of punk rockers … but they looked like circus entertainers compared to [the Stranglers]. They looked too old to be punk. They looked like the sort of people you pass in the street and your mother puts her arm round you, stares at the pavement and doubles her walking speed … The point at which it all got too much was when the camera cut to Dave Greenfield – who has died from Covid-19 aged 71 – jabbing his keyboard while looking straight ahead with what seemed, beyond doubt, to be the eyes of a murderer, an effect somehow compounded by the army-surplus boiler suit he had decided to wear. Just like that, my list of phobias had got a little longer: worms, biting into mushrooms, insects, the fibreglass King Kong which stood next to a ring road in Birmingham city centre and, now, Dave Greenfield from the Stranglers.”

It’s funny writing, but it’s also very incisive about the Stranglers: in real life Greenfield was, by all accounts, the band’s most approachable and charming member, but otherwise Paphides has it spot-on. The Stranglers complained relentlessly about not being accepted by the punk cognoscenti, but what did they expect? They didn’t look like punks, particularly Greenfield, who defiantly sported that least punk of facial accoutrements, a moustache. They were old, at least by the standards of the day, old enough to have the kind of musical pasts it was wise to keep your mouth shut about in the scorched-earth environment created by the Sex Pistols: Hugh Cornwell had played bass in a band with Richard Thompson, later of Fairport Convention; Greenfield had been in a prog rock band called Rusty Butler.

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JoJo: Good to Know review – mature pop from a clear-eyed star

(Clover Music)
With this long-awaited fourth album, the former teen idol has finally arrived as the kind of artist she was always meant to be

‘Look at me now” is a fitting opening line for Good to Know, the fourth studio album from R&B singer JoJo. The artist has been on a storied journey through the music industry and the public eye: first emerging as the 13-year-old singer of Leave (Get Out), she then spent years mired in legal disputes with her label that prevented her releasing music. After reigniting her passionate fanbase with a string of independent, darker-sounding mixtapes (and one viral Drake cover), she released Mad Love, her long-delayed third album, in 2016. But Good to Know, released on her own imprint Clover Music, with its themes of independence and self-knowledge, carries with it a sense that she has finally arrived as the kind of artist she was always meant to be.

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Car Seat Headrest: Making a Door Less Open review – cult indie star in middle of the road | Alexis Petridis' album of the week

(Matador)
Will Toledo’s alt-rockers have emerged out of lo-fi fuzz, but seem unsure of where to turn as they drift toward the mainstream

Anyone wondering how things have changed in the world of lauded US alt-rockers Car Seat Headrest might consider the four years that separate Making a Door Less Open from their last album of new material. Ordinarily there would be nothing unusual about that gap – but in the first four years of Car Seat Headrest’s existence, its mastermind, Will Toledo, released seven albums (one of them a two-hour double), four EPs (one of them as long as an album) and two compilations of outtakes. That’s more than 150 songs and 12 hours of music: a lo-fi spewing forth of ideas that won Toledo a cult following, which then grew exponentially, both in size and rabidity, when he recruited a band and signed to the august US indie label Matador.

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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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Car Seat Headrest: from indie recluse to gas mask-wearing party starter?

US indie rock maverick Will Toledo is back with an experimental album that finds him collaborating with his own electronic side project

You cannot accuse Car Seat Headrest, AKA Will Toledo, of taking the easy route. Four years on from the release of breakthrough record Teens of Denial, Toledo is back with new album Making a Door Less Open, only now he is going under the name Trait and is wearing a gas mask in photos. Toledo’s restless and impassioned indie rock is looking a little different, too. The new album blends his classic songwriting chops with a bold exploration of electronic textures. This is the result of essentially making the album twice: once as Car Seat Headrest, and again alongside producer Andrew Katz as their jokey EDM side project 1 Trait Danger, before landing on a middle ground.

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

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Paul Heaton: 'Love feels like someone is hitting your heart with a cricket bat'

The musician on DIY smooching, dinner parties and why he won’t do interviews between 1.45pm and 2.15pm

Raised in Sheffield, Heaton, 57, founded the Housemartins in the early eighties. They had hit singles with Happy Hour and Caravan Of Love before splitting in 1988. Heaton then formed the Beautiful South, releasing 10 albums before disbanding in 2007. With former band member Jacqui Abbott, Heaton has released three albums, the most recent being Manchester Calling. He is married with three children and lives in Manchester.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Forgetfulness.

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Ty: a dextrous artist who wove threads of UK rap culture together

Ty, who has died aged 47 of coronavirus, was a sharp and witty MC who ably nourished the UK hip-hop scene despite being ignored by the media

The death of British rapper Ty, aged 47, to complications from coronavirus came as a shock because it had appeared he was on his way to recovery after being moved out of intensive care. And for those of us who grew up with Ty’s voice circling our bedrooms, the shock resonates: this is an artist who touched so many with his humour and sharpness on the mic.

While all eyes were on grime in the early 2000s, Ty was charting a journey to a frontier that had yet to be fully explored. In 2001, he released his debut album, Awkward, on Big Dada, one of the few labels that would give a home to UK hip-hop acts such as Roots Manuva, Juice Aleem and Speech Debelle. It was the year of era-defining US albums such as Jay-Z’s The Blueprint and Nas’s Stillmatic, when the mainstream had gone the way of the shiny suit. But across the Atlantic, Ty ushered in the UK’s own hip-hop golden age, leaning towards the genre’s soul, jazz and funk origins.

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San Fran DA Wants Convicted Murderer Released -- His Dad...


San Fran DA Wants Convicted Murderer Released -- His Dad...


(Second column, 20th story, link)





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ROYAL CARIBBEAN crew go on hunger strike until company proves sending them home...


ROYAL CARIBBEAN crew go on hunger strike until company proves sending them home...


(Second column, 17th story, link)





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


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


(Second column, 16th story, link)


Drudge Report Feed needs your support!   Become a Patron




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American Soil Increasingly Foreign Owned ...


American Soil Increasingly Foreign Owned ...


(Second column, 15th story, link)





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Outbreaks in Germany, SKorea show risks in easing up...


Outbreaks in Germany, SKorea show risks in easing up...


(Second column, 4th story, link)


Drudge Report Feed needs your support!   Become a Patron





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Can't decipher Trump-speak? Meet Margaret, the computer bot...


Can't decipher Trump-speak? Meet Margaret, the computer bot...


(First column, 19th story, link)








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STUDY: US death toll halved had it acted 4 days sooner...




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Rosie O'Donnell Reveals She's Helping Michael Cohen With Trump Tell-All Book...


Rosie O'Donnell Reveals She's Helping Michael Cohen With Trump Tell-All Book...


(First column, 7th story, link)






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LITTLE RICHARD DEAD AT 87...


LITTLE RICHARD DEAD AT 87...


(First column, 1st story, link)









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Hafthor Bjornsson, Game of Thrones' 'Mountain', breaks world deadlift record

  • Icelandic strongman lifts 1,104 lb at Thor’s Power Gym
  • 31-year-old starred as Ser Gregor Clegane in HBO series

Icelandic actor and strongman Hafthor Bjornsson set a world record for the deadlift on Saturday when he lifted 1,104 lb (501 kg) at Thor’s Power Gym in Iceland.

Related: Sport documentaries: readers recommend their favourite films

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Sport documentaries: readers recommend their favourite films

From skateboarding to Sunderland, here are the documentaries you suggested to get through live sport’s long shutdown

We recently recommended 12 sports films to watch during lockdown, and asked readers for their favourite documentaries. Here are some of your selections:

Available on Curzon Home Cinema (UK) and Prime Video (US); watch trailer here

Available on Netflix or to rent from YouTube/Google Play/Prime Video

Related: Missing live sport during lockdown? Here are 12 sporting films to watch

Available on Prime Video (free in UK)

Available to buy via Curzon (UK) and Beamafilms; watch the trailer here

Available to rent on Apple/Google Play/YouTube; watch the trailer here

Available via Starz on Prime Video (US) and on DVD; watch trailer here

Available on DVD and online; watch trailer here

Available on ESPN Player; watch the trailer here

Available on Prime Video (UK) and to rent on YouTube. Watch trailer here

Related: The Simpsons: Springfield's greatest sporting moments – quiz

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Game of Thrones 'Mountain' Hafthor Bjornsson breaks world deadlift record – video

Icelandic actor and strongman Hafthor Bjornsson set a world record for the deadlift on Saturday when he lifted 1,104 lb (501 kg), over half a metric tonne, at Thor’s Power Gym in Iceland.

Bjornsson, best known for his portrayal of Ser Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane on Game of Thrones, broke the record previously held by Briton Eddie Hall who in 2016 became the first man to lift 500kg

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Michael Jordan insists 'Republicans buy sneakers too' quote was a joke

  • Comment has followed superstar throughout his life
  • Jordan addresses issue during ESPN’s The Last Dance

Michael Jordan has discussed the quote that has come to define what many see as his willingness to put profit over principles.

During a 1990 Senate race in his home state of North Carolina, Jordan refused to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt, an African American who was running against the incumbent Republican Jesse Helms, a notorious racist. Jordan, who at the time had already won the first of his five NBA MVP awards, explained away his refusal to take a stance by saying “Republicans buy sneakers, too”.

Related: Michael Jordan's furious desire to conquer all still burns decades later

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

  • Head coach died ‘peacefully at home’ say Dolphins
  • Shula recorded only two losing seasons in long career in Miami

Don Shula, the head coach with the most wins in NFL history, has died at the age of 90.

Shula is most famous for leading the 1972 Miami Dolphins to the only undefeated NFL season in history. The team said in a statement on Monday that Shula had “died peacefully” at home.

Related: Favre says Packers 'burned a bridge' with Aaron Rodgers in NFL draft

The Greatest.

Thank you for everything, Coach Shula. pic.twitter.com/7eXY4ZOKn6

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McIlroy and Johnson to team up in $3m golf event for coronavirus charities

  • Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff the opposition at Seminole
  • Broadcast to be screened live in UK and United States

Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff are to take part in an event to raise money for coronavirus charities. The foursome will play in the TaylorMade Driving Relief – a two-team skins challenge over 18 holes – at Seminole in Florida on 17 May.

McIlroy, the world No 1, will team up with Johnson against Fowler and Wolff, with up to $3m (£2.38m) going to the American Nurses Foundation and CDC Foundation. All four will follow strict physical-distancing measures and comprehensive testing will be used to protect players, TV staff and others at the course.

Related: Golf must be force for good when it makes long-awaited return | Ewan Murray

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'A year to be better': Abby Gustaitis on lockdown and the lure of Olympic rugby gold

The Eagles sevens captain has seen the Tokyo Games postponed and USA Rugby go bankrupt. She refuses to let her dream die

Abby Gustaitis, co-captain of the USA sevens team, has not heard the latest news from Tokyo.

Related: Tokyo Olympics in 2021 at risk of cancellation admits Japan's PM

Related: Tom Brady seen training in closed Tampa park during Covid-19 shutdown

Recognize these faces? #DontRushChallenge featuring the #USWNT7s has us ready for a party. pic.twitter.com/wvO6kNkKsi

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Heavily restricted NBA practices expected to resume on Friday

NBA teams are expected to get the go-ahead to reopen practice facilities for limited use as early as Friday, less than two months after the coronavirus outbreak forced the suspension of the season.

With head and assistant coaches barred and scrimmages forbidden, the workouts are unlikely to resemble business as usual for the NBA but would nonetheless be a step towards normalcy for a league whose season was upended in dramatic fashion in March.

Related: My favourite game: Iverson stuns Kobe's Lakers in the 2001 NBA finals | Bryan Armen Graham

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

  • Goodell’s memo outlines protocols for reopening team facilities
  • NFL set to release full regular-season schedule on Thursday

The NFL has set protocols for reopening team facilities and has told the 32 teams to have them in place by 15 May.

In a memo sent by league commissioner Roger Goodell and obtained Wednesday night by the Associated Press, several phases of the protocols were laid out. The first phase to deal with the coronavirus pandemic would involve a limited number of non-player personnel, initially 50% of the non-player employees (up to a total of 75) on any single day, being approved to be at the facility. But state or local regulations could require a lower number.

Related: Why is it always the white NFL players who get a second chance?

Related: Eli Manning predicts 'tough' start for Tom Brady with Buccaneers

Local and state government officials must consent to reopening

The team must implement all operational guidelines set by the league to minimize the risk of virus transmission among employees

Each club must acquire adequate amounts of needed supplies as prescribed by the league

An Infection Response Team with a written plan for newly diagnosed coronavirus cases

An Infection Control Officer to oversee all aspects of the implementation of the listed guidelines

Each employee who returns to work at the club facility must receive Covid-19 safety and hygiene training prior to using the facility, and agree to report health information to the ICO

The response team must consist of a local physician with expertise in common infectious disease principles; the team physician can fill that role. Also on the response team will be the infection control officer, the team’s head athletic trainer; the team physician, if he or she is not serving as the local physician; the human resources director; the team’s chief of security; its mental health clinician or someone with equivalent clinical expertise; and a member of the club’s operations staff such as the facility manager

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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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Ravens' Earl Thomas held at gunpoint by wife over alleged affair, police say

The lawyer for the wife of Baltimore Ravens safety Earl Thomas said she is being subjected to an “unfounded ongoing investigation” by Texas police after she allegedly pointed a gun at her husband’s head upon finding him in bed with another woman last month.

According to a police affidavit, Nina Thomas tracked down her husband at a short-term rental home in Austin in the early morning hours of 13 April and found him and his brother, Seth, in bed with two women.

Related: NFL 2020 schedule: Chiefs kick off title defense against Texans in season opener

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NFL 2020 schedule: Chiefs kick off title defense against Texans in season opener

  • NFL releases 2020 schedule despite coronavirus concerns
  • Chiefs host Texans on 10 September in annual kickoff game
  • Brady to make Buccaneers debut on 13 September at Saints

The Kansas City Chiefs will open defense of their Super Bowl championship by hosting Houston on 10 September in the NFL’s annual kickoff game – pending developments in the coronavirus pandemic, of course.

The Texans won a regular-season game at Arrowhead Stadium in 2019, then blew a 24-0 lead in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Related: Ravens' Earl Thomas held at gunpoint by wife over alleged affair, police say

.@nflcommish on the release of the 2020 schedule pic.twitter.com/Mch0lgXkf8

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