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Everything You Need to Start Your Own Podcast on the Cheap

If you think you’ve got something of value to share with the world – or maybe you just want a project to tackle to fill the hours – then we’ll take you through what you need to know.




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Teenager Ran Away to Be With Boy She Met on Dating Site. A Week Later She Was Dead.

Moorcraft Police Department/Meade County Sheriff’s Office

A South Dakota teenager has admitted to slaying a 16-year-old girl who “ran away” from home to live with him after they met on an online dating website, authorities said.

Michael Campbell, 17, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Thursday for the death of Shayna Ritthaler, a 16-year-old from Moorcroft, Wyoming, who was reported missing from a local coffee shop on Oct. 3. Less than a week later, her body was found in the basement bedroom of Campbell’s home.

“We got into an argument and then I shot her,” Campbell said during a change-of-plea hearing on Thursday, before referring to the teenager as his girlfriend, according to the Associated Press. “I shot her in the head.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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Rosie O’Donnell Reveals She’s Helping Michael Cohen With His ‘Spicy’ Trump Tell-All Book

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

On Friday afternoon, I had a fun, wide-ranging conversation with Rosie O’Donnell, the renowned comedian, daytime TV host, philanthropist, and Trump Enemy No. 1.

The occasion for our talk was I Know This Much Is True, an HBO miniseries premiering May 10 which sees the A League of Their Own star flex her dramatic muscles like never before as Lisa Sheffer, a no-nonsense social worker at a mental health facility housing Thomas Birdsey (Mark Ruffalo).

Over the course of our chat—which will run Monday, May 11—we touched on not only the show (she is excellent) but Trump’s years-long vendetta against her, the Tara Reade allegations, and the untimely death of SMILF amid claims of misconduct against creator and star Frankie Shaw.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Bored in The House? Try Making Some Jam

It seems like during quarantine, everyone has taken up cooking. Some people have been baking bread. Others have been perfecting their pie crust. Even my brother, who I’ve never seen cook a thing in his life, made a chicken pot pie the other day. But berry season is almost upon us and so, I have been prepping my jam making skills. 

While jelly is translucent and made from the juice of fruits, and marmalade is made from citrus fruits and can be overly complicated, jam is fairly easy to make. It’s made with whole or cut fruit and cooked with sugar, and can end up either chunky or completely smooth, depending on how you like yours. 

Jam is all about being assertive, about testing out different add-ins and sugars. To help you get the most out of the berry season, we’ve rounded up everything you need to make ideal jam.

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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Prepare for Sex and Dating to Get Even More Complicated Once the Lockdown Lifts

Mario Tama/Getty

For the past two months, Katie Holliday has been cooped up alone in her Brooklyn apartment thinking longingly about an unlikely erogenous zone: the lower half of a stranger’s face. 

“I remember joking to my friend before all of this started, ‘Imagine if someone’s face becomes their most coveted body part?’” Holliday, who is 31, told The Daily Beast. “‘When someone removes their mask, is it a sign of trust? Is it like letting someone see you naked?’ I was kidding back then, but now it’s reality.”

Holliday doesn’t know exactly when it will be safe to start seeing people like she did before the pandemic began, but she’ll return to a singles scene unlike any other in history. “I’m picturing walking into a bar where everyone’s wearing masks,” she said. “I’ll meet someone whose face is covered. Are they cute or not? I don’t know!” 

Read more at The Daily Beast.



  • Arts and Culture

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Jim Bakker’s Prepper Village Is Having the Worst Apocalypse Ever

Ben Broadwater via Wikimedia Commons

Morningside USA was supposed to be apocalypse-proof. 

A gated, stucco fortress in the southwest corner of Missouri’s Ozark mountains, Morningside is an evangelical Christian community built to rent condos right through the end of the world.

“Where are you going to go when the world's on fire? Where are you going to go? This place is for God's people and this place, we need some farmers to move here,” Morningside’s founder, the disgraced doomsday televangelist Jim Bakker, said in a May 2018 sermon. “Did you know people from the government, from NASA, research from so many of them, they have said in their research, the safest place to live in troubled times is right here?”  

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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After Five Bloody Years in Syria, Russia Is Turning Against Iran—and Assad

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

GAZIANTEP, Turkey—After five years fighting to preserve Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Russia now appears inclined to dispose of its infamous client. Assad’s persistent brutality and corruption, and his inability to establish even the semblance of a functioning state, has grown to be a burden Moscow would prefer not to bear.

And then there’s the problem of Iran. Assad, members of his family, and his Alawite clansmen enjoy close, perhaps unbreakable, bonds to the regime in Tehran and to Iranian-backed militias in Syria. All of which undermines Moscow’s primary mission there: to rehabilitate the Assad regime as a symbol of stability capable of attracting hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment for reconstruction, which Russian firms would then be poised to receive. 

As long as Assad’s relatives continue to function as a mafia and give free rein to Iranian troops using Syria as base of operations to threaten Israel and plan attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, those countries likely to foot the bill for Syrian reconstruction—the nations of Europe and the Gulf—are unlikely to come up with the cash. 

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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COVID Bailout Cash Goes to Big Players That Have Paid Millions To Settle Allegations Of Wrongdoing

Getty

By Rachana Pradhan and Fred Schulte | Kaiser Health News

The Trump administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic-related bailouts to health care providers with checkered histories, including a Florida-based cancer center that agreed to pay a $100 million criminal penalty as part of a federal antitrust investigation.

At least half of the top 10 recipients, part of a group that received $20 billion in emergency funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, have paid millions in recent years either in criminal penalties or to settle allegations related to improper billing and other practices, a Kaiser Health News review of government records shows.

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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‘Dead to Me’ Found a Brilliantly Soapy Way to Bring Back James Marsden in Season 2

Saeed Adyani / Netflix

This post contains spoilers for Dead to Me Season 2.

Maybe it’s the surreality of, well, everything lately—or maybe it’s just aged like the fine wines all of its characters toss back by the bottle. Whatever the reason, Dead to Me Season 2 hits even better than Season 1—fighting off a sophomore slump with a fresh batch of twists, dramatic ironies, and, most importantly, some more Christina Applegate angsting out to metal. Perhaps this season’s smartest move, however, is a trope pulled straight out of Soapy Dramas 101: Bringing James Marsden back to play his own twin.

Series creator Liz Feldman was sending the usual thank-you notes back and forth with cast and crew after Season 1 wrapped when she received a particularly amusing message from Marsden.

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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Real Men Like Trump Dare the Virus to Punch Them in the Lungs

Brendan Smialowski/Getty

On Tuesday the president took his first trip since the coronavirus grounded the country, to a Honeywell factory in battleground state Arizona. This particular Honeywell factory produces N95 masks. Pictures of the trip immediately surfaced on the internet, and they showed a president sporting his usual mango-tinted, ever-tan skin, his usual topiary-structured hair tinted a baffling yellowish, and a pair of clear safety goggles.

But what was missing? What we did not see on the president’s face was a mask. While the rest of us cover our faces as recommended by the CDC, the president does not. In fact, we have never seen a mask on the president, despite the president’s love of masking himself when it comes to his tax returns, his sexual assault allegations, and his financial dealings.   

On Wednesday, when pressed on his decision not to wear a mask at a mask factory, the president responded with the very fishy, “I had a mask on for a period of time, I had it on back, backstage. But they said you didn’t need it, so, I didn’t need it. And by the way, if you noticed, nobody else had it on that was in the group.” Okay. Whatever you say. 

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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Since You Have More Time on Your Hands, Why Not Give Composting a Shot

Being at home this long, or really, just in one place for this long, has led me to see how much waste I produce. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot more than I thought. But I’m not here to shame anyone, in fact, quite the opposite. I think there are plenty of small ways we can cut down our carbon footprint, from driving less (check), to not using a washing machine or dryer (also, sadly, check), but gardening is what I’ve been doing, and is something that I’d recommend everyone give a shot now that we all have a little more times on our hands.

GETTING STARTED

Composting is a natural way to recycle all of the organic materials in your house through decomposition. Compost can improve your soil’s water retention, which saves you money on your water bills, and helps keep excess garbage out of landfills, too. To get started you need two things. The first is a compost bin for your kitchen. This is great whether you want to start a compost at home or if you have a compost center you can bring them to. You want something sleek, designy, yet simple because after all, it’s really just a trash can. This is an excellent one.

Read more at The Daily Beast.




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Google Pixel 4a: Everything We Know So Far

Last year the release of Google's Pixel 3a heralded a shift in the mid-range phone market. Coming in at $649 and packing some flagship specs, it changed what people should expect from a a phone at that price. Other brands followed suit, including Apple with its recently released iPhone SE. Suffice to say, the arrival of Googles new budget device, the Pixel 4a, is cause for some excitedment. Here's what we know about it so far. More »
    




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Here's A Metal Cover Of The Cantina Band Song

I bloody love me some Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes. So for Star Wars Day I thought it would be funny to see if a decent cover of their most famous tune existed. It does. Oh how it does. More »
    




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Australian Apple Stores Are Re-Opening This Week

Back in early March Apple announced that it would closing the majority of its physical stores worldwide. Roughly seven weeks later Australian Apple stores will be re-opening their doors around the country later this week. More »
    




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Telco You've Never Heard Of Is Flogging 103GB Data For $38 A Month With No Contract

Circles.Life is a little-known telco with a questionable name choice. But it also happens to have a real hectic SIM-only plan deal right now. For $38 a month you get a whopping 103GB data -- also per month. And you don't even need to sign a contract. More »
    




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Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite: The Budget Tablet Just Landed In Australia

Samsung just released the smaller version of its Galaxy Tab S6 tablet in Australia. Though it did appear in some online stores a little early, now it's official. Here's what its packing and how much it will cost in Australia. More »
    




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COVIDSafe Still Has Bugs, According To Experts

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the government's coronavirus tracing app, COVIDSafe, but at the forefront has been issues of privacy and its ability to work properly on devices. With the federal government tying the easing of social restrictions to app downloads, developers have reverse engineered the app to find out what's actually wrong with it. Here's what they've found. More »
    




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13 Aussie Podcasts You Should Be Listening To

I'm a huge podcast tragic. From true crime to weird radio plays, I like shoving as much of them into my ear holes as possible. But despite my efforts, I realised that I don't listen to as many Australian podcasts as I'd like. Sure, I have a few favourites, but I could be doing more to support local creators. So I asked around the office to find out what the best Aussie podcasts are, and why I (and you) should be listening to them. More »
    




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How Mobile Data Sharing Works

There are a lot of big steps you can take in a relationship. Dropping the 'L bomb', moving in together, combined finances, getting engaged. All these pale in comparison to sharing mobile data. Sharing your precious data with a significant other is big. You have to trust that your partner won't burn through it all while bingeing Netflix on the bus. You have to respect your partner's share. And you have to forgive when someone inevitably goes over the cap anyway. But how exactly does data sharing work? More »
    




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Money saving hacks: How you could save over £650 in a year - from just one penny



MONEY saving hacks are something which many people will look to adopt in their lives, be it for a financial milestone or for a rainy day fund. And, there may be a way in which some soon see their spare cash add up.




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Lockdown warning: Tory MP Baker 'gravely concerned' at coronavirus economic damage



THE CORONAVIRUS lockdown is now causing serious damage to the UK's economy, Tory MP Steve Baker has warned - stressing he was now "gravely concerned" at the situation




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State pension age changed this week – this is when the next rise will occur



STATE pension age is continually being reviewed and altered by the government. The latest change occurred earlier this week.




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Mervyn King's brutal analysis of banking sector exposed in blow to coronavirus recovery



MERVYN KING, the former governor of the Bank of England, once issued a brutal analysis of the global banking system and argued for its reinvention, it can be revealed as the Government fine-tunes its economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.




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Aramco IPO Enters Final Phase, Shares to Start Trading Wednesday—Energy Journal

Saudi Aramco’s IPO saga has turned into “A Tale of Two Princes.” As Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has guided the IPO far from public view, his half-brother Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman stepped onto center stage in Vienna last week, presiding over a crucial gathering of OPEC and its oil-producing allies […]




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Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho backed to complete bargain signing



Tottenham will need to be creative in the transfer market this summer.




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Chelsea news LIVE: Chilwell makes transfer decision, Onana warning, target learns English



Chelsea news and gossip is coming in thick and fast so Express Sport is on hand to bring you all the very latest from Stamford Bridge.




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Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp reveals private meetings with Steven Gerrard during lockdown



Jurgen Klopp never got to manage Steven Gerrard at Liverpool but the pair still have a strong relationship given their connections to the club.




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Watford chairman slams Premier League's Project Restart in scathing rant



Watford chairman Scott Duxbury has questioned whether the Premier League should return amid the coronavirus pandemic.




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Meeting the NASA Mars rover that might find life on the Red Planet

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will search for signs of life on Mars, and New Scientist’s Leah Crane visited it in the clean room where it is being assembled




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Mercury’s outer layers may have been stripped off by a young Venus

Mercury is mostly iron, which may be because a series of close encounters with a young Venus billions of years ago stripped away its rocky outer layers




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Jill Tarter: The hunt for alien life is only just beginning

We may not have found alien life yet, but new methods and the discovery of exoplanets and extreme life on Earth is revolutionising the hunt, says the doyenne of SETI research




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Two stars colliding in 2083 will outshine all the others in the sky

Two stars in the constellation Sagitta are predicted to smash together in the year 2083, producing an explosion that will outshine every star in the sky




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A single star has let us put a date on our galaxy’s last cosmic meal

The Milky Way ate another galaxy called Gaia-Enceladus, and the waves passing through a star have shown us that it happened at most 11.6 billion years ago




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Chinese Chang’e 4 engineer explains how to garden on the moon

The brains behind the first plant ever to germinate on the moon explains how the Chinese mission succeeded




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NASA astronaut Kathryn Sullivan on zero G dreams and fixing Hubble

The first US woman to spacewalk flew on three shuttle missions and says nothing beats space flight – but her proudest achievement is helping to repair the Hubble Space Telescope




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Inside the mission to stop killer asteroids from smashing into Earth

When asteroid Armageddon is upon us, we can't just call Bruce Willis. Meet the people who really do watch the skies – and make detailed plans for our survival




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Figuring out what the Milky Way looks like is akin to a murder mystery

How can we get a picture of the whole Milky Way if we are inside it? Good sleuthing is needed to combine all the clues, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein




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Two stars with an odd wobble are stretching space and time around them

Einstein’s theory of relativity predicts that fast-spinning objects stretch space and time around them, and we’ve watched that effect make a pair of stars wobble




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Legal action could be used to stop Starlink affecting telescope images

A group of astronomers has called for legal action to stop the launch of thousands of satellites designed by companies like SpaceX and OneWeb to beam high-speed internet around the world




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NASA missions may go to Venus or our solar system’s strangest moons

NASA has selected four potential future missions – to Jupiter’s fiery moon Io, Neptune’s icy moon Triton, and two that would explore the atmosphere and map the surface of Venus




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An exoplanet is generating radio waves from its red dwarf sun

For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet by detecting radio waves generated by interactions with its parent star




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A wobbling star may explain pattern of weird radio signals from space

We’ve spotted strange blasts of radio waves from space in a pattern that may be produced by a magnetised neutron star wobbling as it spins




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Five things we have learned about Mars from NASA's InSight mission

NASA’s InSight lander has been on the surface of Mars for over a year now – here are five of its strangest and most fascinating discoveries from the Red Planet




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The atmosphere gets in the way of the universe’s most amazing objects

Earth’s atmosphere thankfully provides air for us to breathe, but when trying to study interesting objects in space it causes all sorts of problems, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein




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Weird star was born when two white dwarfs merged instead of blowing up

White dwarf stars are common in the galaxy, but astronomers have found one that doesn't seem to obey the rules. They think it was born when two smaller white dwarfs merged together




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Black hole from the early universe is blasting us with a powerful jet

A huge black hole from when the universe was less than a billion years old is shooting a powerful jet at Earth, and studying it could help us understand the young cosmos




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How red is a black hole? The strange reality of what space looks like

Our images of deep space are spectacular, but don’t reflect what our eyes would see. Here's what their stunning true colours reveal about the cosmos




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Comet 67P is hiding nitrogen that could solve a solar system mystery

The Rosetta spacecraft’s measurements of comet 67P have revealed a hidden source of nitrogen that may help us learn how giant planets – and even life – formed




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Strange lines on Venus may be folded stacks of lava eroded by wind

Venus’s surface is covered in strange wiggling lines that may form when colossal stacks of lava are carved by gentle winds over hundreds of millions of years




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Bombing asteroid Ryugu reveals it is a spritely 9 million years old

The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft bombed the asteroid Ryugu in April. Analysing the crater it left behind suggests Ryugu is a relative youngster at 9 million years old