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Pete Davidson fan delivered drugs to comedian's mother's house during lockdown

Davidson is currently quarantining in his mother's basement




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David Attenborough: 15 of the naturalist's best quotes

In celebration of his 94th birthday




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'Love in the Time of Corona': Coronavirus romance series filmed entirely remotely to air this summer

Show promises a 'funny and hopeful look at the search for love, sex and connection during this time of social distancing'




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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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Normal People's Paul Mescal was once in an advert for sausages, and fans have only just found out

The 'Normal People' star played an Irish teenager whose sausage inspires him to travel the world




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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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Miriam Margolyes shocks fans after admitting she 'had difficulty not wanting Boris Johnson to die' during coronavirus battle

Actor is famous for making her opinions known during interviews




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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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Arion: Voyage of a Slavic Soul review – rich lyricism from Natalya Romaniw

(Orchid Classics)
Natalya Romaniw (soprano), Lada Valešová (piano)

The on-the-rise soprano excels in this deeply personal Russian-Czech recital

Born in Swansea of Ukrainian descent, the outstanding young soprano Natalya Romaniw was singing – stunningly – the title role of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly at English National Opera when Covid-19 restrictions forced the abrupt termination of the run. She should also have performed the title role of Dvořák’s water nymph, Rusalka, at Garsington Opera this summer, where she made an impact in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2016 and Smetana’s The Bartered Bride last summer. Disappointing for her at this turning point of her career, and for her growing number of fans.

Romaniw’s new album, Arion: Voyage of a Slavic Soul – dedicated to the memory of her Ukrainian grandfather, “my great musical inspiration”, explores repertoire by the Russians Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov, and the Czechs Dvořák, Janáček and Novák. The pianist Lada Valešová captures the varied colours of the piano writing expertly, an equal and supportive partner. These 28 songs, especially the folk-rich examples by Janáček and Novák, suit Romaniw’s generous, big-toned voice, its timbre flecked and speckled with character and emotion. The eight songs by Dvořák grouped as Love Songs, Op 83, melancholy and lyrical, make us even more impatient to hear her Rusalka when the time comes.

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Kelly Lee Owens: ‘I still have to fight to not be seen as ‘just the singer’’

The Welsh nurse-turned-indie rocker is now one of electronic music’s best exponents. She talks proving herself, the NHS and climate-crisis bangers

Kelly Lee Owens is showing me her crumpled bed, pixelated on the screen. It is five weeks into quarantine and this has quickly become the norm: an interview with an artist in their close quarters; ambivalent levels of grooming. Neither of us is wearing makeup, and neither of us care. “You know what I read?” begins the electronic musician, incredulously. “This is bullshit. There’s a [Daily Mail] headline saying that women’s breasts will be sagging because they’re not going to be wearing bras during this lockdown. So what?! Leave me to my saggy breasts.”

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

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Kim Petras's lockdown listening: 'My fans have truly kept me sane'

The cult pop star shares her self-isolation favourites, including Dua Lipa’s disco and Daft Punk’s dystopias

Isolation has definitely been a test, but I’m really lucky: I’m able to work on new music while quarantined with my best friends in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles. I’ve been super active on Twitter and Instagram, and playing Animal Crossing and Mario Kart with my fans after sharing my Nintendo Switch codes online – it’s really important for me to check in on my fans as I worry about them a lot. They have truly kept me sane, so I’m keeping an eye open for anybody that needs to talk.

Related: Belle and Sebastian's lockdown listening: 'I have a dance-off with my kids every night'

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By making Florida his official residence, Trump may also have made legal mess...


By making Florida his official residence, Trump may also have made legal mess...


(Second column, 18th story, link)





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Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy Dies of Coronavirus...


Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy Dies of Coronavirus...


(Second column, 1st story, link)


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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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USWNT may have lost the battle over equal pay but they will win the war

The US women’s team have lost their lawsuit over equal pay but they continue to make progress in the court of public opinion

This isn’t how the fight for equal pay is supposed to end for the US women’s national team.

On Friday a US district court judge rejected the USWNT’s allegations of gender discrimination and ruled in favor of the US Soccer Federation, declaring that the team have not been underpaid.

Related: Joe Biden wades into equal pay dispute between USWNT and US Soccer

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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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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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How Coronavirus Has Helped to Clear the Air

Satellite data shows just how much air quality has improved during the coronavirus crisis, from China, India, Italy and beyond.




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Can Mushrooms Actually Help Save the Planet?

Many people think mushrooms have the potential to be environmental game-changers by replacing some plastics, meats and even eating through landfill waste. Could these fungi really help save the planet?




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Can you get coronavirus twice? – video explainer

A serious concern since the emergence of Covid-19 has been whether those who have had it can get it a second time – and what that means for exiting this crisis.

The Guardian’s science correspondent, Hannah Devlin, looks at how our bodies fight coronavirus when infected, how we develop immunity and if we can get reinfected with Covid-19

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David Sedaris: 'Alan Bennett's Talking Heads is pretty much the best thing ever'

The comic essayist on crying over Olive Kitteridge, his love for Richard Yates and the books that make him laugh

The book I am currently reading
Hidden Valley Road. It’s a nonfiction book about a family with 12 children, half of whom turn out to be schizophrenic. In the opening pages the mother sews a live bird’s eyes shut. And she’s one of the few who isn’t mentally ill!

The book that changed my life
Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. A friend read it out aloud to me when we were hitchhiking across America in 1976, and it made me think:That’s right – books! After high school I had forgotten about them. As soon as I got a stable address, I secured a library card, and started making up for lost time.

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Sharri Markson's coronavirus 'bombshell' impresses Fox's Tucker Carlson | Weekly Beast

Those less convinced in Australia cast doubt on source of Wuhan lab ‘intelligence’. Plus: Trump and Jennifer Hawkins

The origin of the coronavirus has opened up a new battlefield between the Murdoch press and just about everyone else – and given the Daily Telegraph’s Sharri Markson an international platform on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.

Following in the footsteps of her colleague Miranda Devine, who also made it onto Fox News, Markson told Tucker Carlson Tonight the “bombshell dossier” she had uncovered showed some of the world’s foremost intelligence agencies were investigating whether the virus was linked to a lab in Wuhan.

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The Murdoch media’s China coronavirus conspiracy has one aim: get Trump re-elected | Kevin Rudd

News Corp is campaigning full-bore for the US president, with reports of a Wuhan lab ‘intelligence’ dossier being seeded across its empire

In liberal democracies, the integrity, impartiality and professionalism of intelligence agencies matters. That’s why it is essential that intelligence agencies remain aloof, not only from the political debates of the day, but also from the policy decisions that individual governments may take. The intelligence community’s core task is to provide brutally realistic analysis on the threat environments we face so that governments can then make the best-informed policy decisions possible to preserve our common security.

The failures of the intelligence community before the Iraq war, the gullibility of much of the western media, as well as the cynical manipulation of both by the political class of the day, provide us with a stark reminder of what can go radically wrong. On 8 September 2002 the New York Times published one of this century’s most consequential news articles. The front-page story, supplied by the Bush administration, claimed that Saddam Hussein had stepped up his quest for weapons of mass destruction by acquiring key components for a nuclear weapon. In the UK, the Blair government’s “dodgy dossier” compounded the error. John Howard did the same in Australia. The problem was that it just wasn’t true. These were over-egged stories designed to soften the public up for what would become a disastrous war.

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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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Covidsafe app: how to download Australia’s coronavirus contact tracing app, how it works, what it does and problems

The app will ask for your name (or pseudonym), age range, postcode and phone number. Scott Morrison says the Australian government’s covid safe tracking app won’t be mandatory to download and install, but its uptake numbers could play a part in easing Covid-19 restrictions

The Australian government has launched Covidsafe, an app that traces every person running the app who has been in contact with someone else using the app who has tested positive for coronavirus in the previous few weeks, in a bid to automate coronavirus contact tracing, and allow the easing of restrictions.

Here’s what we know about the app so far.

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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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Dying too young: coronavirus, my Māori family and me

Lockdown has granted me the blessing of getting to know my father, but it has also underlined the severe health inequalities we face

I hardly recognise the man in front of me. He staggers on one leg, his eye twitches, his stomach stretches past his waist.

“I got some fry bread for us,” he grins, his toothless smile reminding me he is getting old and so am I.”

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Coronavirus and culture: 'We're waiting it out in paradise'

When the coronavirus crisis hit, Yolngu elders moved back to east Arnhem Land homelands where they found freedom, peace, and power

Adapting to change is something Yolngu are good at, senior Rirratjingu songman Witiyana Marika says.

When the coronavirus first started making news, community leadership met to plan how they would manage if Covid-19 arrived in eastern Arnhem land. Senior men and women met with the emergency taskforce, the local Miwatj health service and the Laynhapuy homelands organisation to take the most vulnerable people further away from risk.

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Fear of flying foxes: coronavirus is topping off a bad year for Australia's bats

They’ve faced drought, extreme heat and bushfires, and now they have to deal with a new paranoia courtesy of the pandemic

Australia’s bats are turning up in increasing numbers in city suburbs. But as they search for food, they’re bringing for some a newfound paranoia thanks to a global pandemic that likely sprang from one of their overseas relatives.

In Ingham in far north Queensland, an influx of more than 200,000 little red flying foxes in January was variously described as a “swarm”, a “tornado” and an “infestation”.

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Cedar Meats cluster: why abattoir workers are on the coronavirus frontline

As the US deals with a Covid-19 catastrophe in its meatworks, the Melbourne factory points to the potential for outbreaks in Australia

Working in an abattoir at the best of times is tough. The hours are long, the labour is intensive and, for rank and file labourers, the pay is low.

Now, in the Covid-19 crisis, workers have one more thing to worry about – around the world their factories have proved to be a hotbed of infection. As Australia moves to ease lockdown laws, meat workers may still be at the frontline of exposure and infection.

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Thai elephants, out of work due to coronavirus, trudge home

The millions of unemployed in Thailand due to the coronavirus include elephants dependent on tourists to feed their voracious appetites. With scant numbers of foreign visitors, commercial elephant camps and sanctuaries lack funds for their upkeep and have sent more than 100 of the animals trudging back to their natural habitats.




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Has the new coronavirus mutated to be more contagious? Experts weigh in

Scientists are cautioning that it’s still too early to know how the novel coronavirus mutates after a preliminary study in the U.S. claimed that a new strain of the virus has emerged that is more dominant and contagious than the original.




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Can the blood of a llama named 'Winter' be used to protect against coronavirus?

What may be the latest hope in the hunt to develop a treatment for COVID-19 comes from an unusual source – a furry, four-year-old llama named 'Winter' that is living on a farm in the Belgium countryside.




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Experts agree this hurricane season will be above-average, maybe even extremely active

Hurricane season is fast approaching and it is likely to be active -- maybe even an extremely active -- season.




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Paul O'Grady believes he's 'most definitely' had coronavirus

Coronavirus: The symptoms




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Tim Brooke-Taylor dead: Goodies co-stars lead tributes as actor dies aged 79 after contracting coronavirus

Bill Oddie hails Brooke-Taylor as 'true visual comic' Stephen Fry, Rob Brydon and Jack Dee also pay tribute Brooke-Taylor joins public figures to have died after contracting Covid-19 Read our live coronavirus updates HERE




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Dynamo says he's 'definitely through the worst' after coronavirus diagnosis

Coronavirus: the symptoms




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Ovie Soko's new lockdown haircut leaves fans divided

Like many, Ovie Soko has staved off lockdown boredom by getting rid of his hair




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Rita Wilson details coronavirus ordeal and warns of treatment side effects

The actress and her husband, Tom Hanks, were both hospitalised with the deadly virus




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Jack Savoretti hails teachers as 'unsung heroes' of coronavirus crisis

The musician has been home-schooling his two children




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Johnny Depp joins Instagram and thanks fans for 'unwavering support'

The actor amassed more than a million followers in one hour




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Tom Hanks details coronavirus ordeal and reveals wife Rita Wilson 'went through a tougher time'

The actor and his wife both tested positive for the virus in Australia