Dabirul Islam Choudhury, a 100-year-old Muslim man in the UK, has raised over $207,000 for those affected by COVID-19 by walking laps in his 260-foot-long community garden while fasting for Ramadan.
The funds were raised on his Just Giving page and will be donated to the Ramadan Family Commitment (RFC) Covid-19 crisis initiative, run by British-Bangladeshi television broadcaster Channel S.
The program raises money for vulnerable individuals during the 30-day period. Ramadan is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community.
Muslims observe the period by fasting every day from dawn to dusk. The fast is said to create a raised level of closeness to God.
Choudhury set himself the challenge of walking 100 laps during the Muslim holy month which ends on May 23. He was inspired by Colonel Sir Tom Moore, the 100-year-old war veteran who raised almost $40 million for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) by taking laps of his backyard.
For is efforts, Moore will be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
Choudhury has used the occasion to send a message of unity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Thank you for your generous donations,” Choudhury said. “We have proved that we can stand hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder during the most unprecedented time of our lives.”
He also congratulated Moore for his knighthood.
“I would like to congratulate Captain Sir Thomas Moore for being knighted for his exemplary efforts to raise funds for our NHS,” Choudhury continued.
Choudbry says he is “honoured to serve, and will continue fiercely to fight for COVID-19 victims.”
Choudhury’s efforts won him praise from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. “On behalf of @UKLabour, I would like to thank Dabirul Islam Choudhury for his incredible fundraising effort,” the Labour leader tweeted.
“I know he has now raised well over £150,000 for those affected by coronavirus in the UK and Bangladesh.”
For a 100-year-old man to do laps in an 260-foot-long garden is a feat in an of itself. But to do so while fasting is truly incredible. According to his son, his journey has only made him stronger. “When we started, we started at a small pace but he’s been increasing his number of laps he’s doing,” his son, Atique Choudhury, told the BBC.
“The problem we have is that we have to try and stop him because he wants to carry on,” he added.
Choudhury was born on January 1, 1920 in British Assam (current-day Bangladesh). In 1957, he moved to England to study English literature. Because of his education he would grow to become a community leader and has worked tirelessly to help the people of Bangladesh.
Many industries have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented shutdown that tried to limit its spread, but the gaming industry continues to thrive while the shutdown continues. Some major titles have seen movie-style delays later into the calendar, but as people wait out the pandemic at home they’ve taken to video games in record numbers.
Game spending topped $10.5 billion last month, higher than March figures ($10 billion) and up 17 percent from the same month in 2019 according to the latest report from Nielsen’s SuperData.
Perhaps the best example of this is Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the title that captured the attention of a record number of people who also owned Nintendo Switch consoles before a shortage struck in the shutdown’s first few weeks. According to the report, it’s taken just two months for Animal Crossing to become the biggest game in the console’s history.
Nintendo’s social simulation game Animal Crossing: New Horizons led the charge, selling the most digital units — $3.6 million — of any game during the month. After only two months on the market, the game is now the top Switch title in lifetime digital sales and lifetime digital revenue.
Considering that number tops any Mario game or even Breath of the Wild — largely considered the best Switch game and one of the best titles of the current console generation — it’s a good indictor of Animal Crossing‘s popularity. So no, your Twitter feed filled with screenshots from your friend’s islands is not a mirage.
Boundary-pushing electronic pop duo 100 Gecs continues their prolific year. The group has tapped UK pop singer GFOTY and DJ Count Baldor for a zany remix of their track “Stupid Horse.”
The remix arrives alongside a fitting yet jarring visual. Directed by Weston Allen and animated by Cole Kush, the video features the group’s signature technicolor aesthetic. The video launches the viewer into a digital alternate reality where GFOTY and Count Baldor sport wigs and act as alternate versions of 100 Gecs’ members Dylan Brady and Laura Les.
The reworked track is the latest in a string remixes released by the group, all of which are slated to appear on 100 Gecs’ upcoming project 1000 Gecs & The Tree Of Clues. Along with the “Stupid Horse” remix, their Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, and Kero Kero Bonito collaboration “Ringtone” will also appear on the forthcoming mixtape. Big-name artists weren’t the only ones 100 Gecs enlisted for assistance with remixes. The group’s mixtape will also feature reworked singles from fans who received stems for the album from the duo’s Twitter.
Listen to the “Stupid Horse (Remix)” above.
1000 Gecs is out now via Dog Show records. Get it here.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
For a game that flatly declares golf “boring,” What The Golf is one hell of a golf game. It’s a title that turns everything into golf — even some of you favorite other video games like like Portal, SUPERHOT, Donkey Kong, and Frogger — while sharing its disdain for the traditional world of quiet courses, serene nature, and a distinct lack of cats on the course. That’s because if you ask the Danes behind the hilarious physics simulator, everything is actually a golf game when you really think about it.
“We wanted to kind of — I think it’s a bad word — but we wanted to kind of show off. Show you that those game mechanics that were in that game that you loved so much? It’s basically a golf mechanic,” said Rune Drewsen, a co-founder of Tribrand, which made What The Golf? “The only game that’s not golf is What The Golf? But all the other games that you’ve played? Even Assassin’s Creed. That’s golf.”
Unlike Golf Story, an indie heavily influenced by Mario Golf‘s arcade simulation, What The Golf? is more a physics engine designed to make you giggle unexpectedly. And by minimizing the seriousness of golf with some extremely silly mechanics, it makes a distinct political point without having to make it obvious. The folks behind the game “don’t have anything against” golf, but they do think the “rich man’s game” is certainly deserving of a bit of video game scorn.
“I think it’s super important when you do satire or whatever in some kind of sense that you’re kicking up. You should never kick down in society and I’m pretty sure that golf is one of the games that actually led to most countries’ downfall in a way,” Drewsen said. “I’m pretty sure that a lot of coups and stupid business sh*t have been planned on the golf course. I’m not sure any coups have been planned on the table tennis table or something like that.”
What The Golf? starts simply enough: a cartoon golfer stands on a tee with a cartoon hole in the distance and some cats curiously in your way. The controls are even simpler: use a single button and your joystick to get the ball to the hole and advance along. But it quickly turns into much more than that, and a bullet time-like system of slow motion helps you navigate through levels with your ball still in motion. Repetition is key to the laughs, as well as how you progress through and learn new ways to complete levels. Soon the same hole setup plays out very differently.
Triband
Subsequent holes get more and more outlandish and creative. There are some serious shades of titles like Baba Is You or Wario Ware that make for some inspiring and unexpected level design — think courses where the power meter of your “golf” shot suddenly becomes a bat to propel other objects forward or different gravitational forces from planets in a space-themed mini level. As you play through the laboratory setting of the campaign, your golf ball turns into various other objects that change the makeup and abilities of the object you propel through levels.
What the Golf? drew big crowds of people laughing at some of the levels that made the final version of the game at PAX in 2019. But those were just small doses of a concept that’s fully fleshed out here, and seeing the title developed into a significantly more substantial thematic journey makes for an even more rewarding experience.
Perhaps what’s most impressive about the title is that it pays homage to other games without feeling repetitive or recycled. What The Golf? directly parodies everything from Mario to Super Meat Boy. There’s a beloved game that gets its own level later on that I won’t spoil but is truly inspired. And sports like bowling, snowboarding, and auto racing feature in some level design as well. If you missed the joke somehow, the on-screen puns and declarations when you complete the level will help you along. Drewsen equated the punch lines to the “KO” you see in fighting games, pointing to the absurdity of something that’s now become commonplace, if not expected, in a video game genre.
Triband
Games of every kind get a look here, even those little ball bearing obstacle course puzzles you probably got at the doctor’s office when you were a kid. Seeing this all executed in a single title is legitimately exciting. It deftly navigates delicate tasks — moving a vase through an obstacle course without breaking — and the more chaotic levels where anything goes. Despite the quick pace of progressing through the game, the reply value is certainly there in all the “crown” challenges that offer new, more difficult versions of the same courses.
That’s not to say the game is just stealing concepts from other titles and has nothing new to offer. To the contrary, watching everything become golf — and thereby a sport — is a wholly imaginative work that’s extremely satisfying to play and conquer. What The Golf? constantly surprises, even if the references are plainly obvious to those playing. It’s a game that uses every resource available to do something unexpected, a tough task when you know how every challenge should end. It’s art that can only exist as a video game, which was exactly the point.
“I think that’s what video games should do,” Drewsen said. “I think it’s super important, like if you have a graphic novel or a comic or whatever, I think it’s super important that you do something with that medium that only that medium can do. That will make the biggest impact on the audience because they will say ‘Oh my god, if they made a Netflix series out of that it wouldn’t be this awesome.’”
Triband
The creativity at play is impressive and makes what could be a straightforward puzzle game something much more. It often plays as a platformer, and a pretty good one at that. What The Golf? was released on PC and the Apple Arcade in 2019, but the retooled Switch version released this week adds some considerably worthwhile modes and special levels. There are “first person” experiences out of the Switch doc that are not to be missed, and two-player Party Mode is a blast of competitive chaos. There are also daily challenges and an “Impossible” challenge, all of which maximizes its value on the Switch in a very real way.
Smartly, the game has a menu option to “Show To A Friend” without messing up your save or having them complete your accomplishments. This is great title to watch, but one you want to play all for yourself. Trust me when I say the laundry list of fun features and surprises mentioned above just starts to scratch the surface of the fun. There’s so much to explore, and a lot to laugh about along the way. Even if you, like the game itself, proclaim to hate golf.
The 2019-20 NBA season remains on hiatus since the global COVID-19 pandemic reached its stratosphere in March, but the league and players have reportedly been working on a return to play. After team offices and buildings shuttered along with restaurants, gyms and barber shops across the country, the league announced that teams could open their practice facilities starting May 1 in cities and states where local governments have relaxed stay-at-home orders. Players have been able to choose for themselves if they feel comfortable participating, and the move, in compliance with social distancing guidelines, only allows for individual workouts.
Since then, the league has also reportedly discussed the possibility of a bubble league, with Orlando’s Walt Disney World the frontrunner to host such an operation. On Friday, Marc Stein of The New York Times reported that the NBA will only allow teams to bring around 35 people, including players, coaches and other staff, to a “campus” site in July, when the season is strongly expected to resume. As Stein noted, a normal game day would include more than 50 members from each team in attendance.
League sources say NBA teams have been informed they would likely be allowed to bring (roughly) 35 players/coaches/staff into a “campus” environment if the 2019-20 season, as increasingly expected, resumes in July
In normal circumstances, team travel parties routinely exceed 50
The WNBA, whose season was scheduled to begin on May 15, will likely mirror the NBA’s plans, although in a separate location. Earlier this month, The New York Times found that MGM Resorts International, which owns several properties in Las Vegas including the Mandalay Bay Events Center — home to the Las Vegas Aces and host of the 2019 WNBA All-Star Weekend — made its case as a possible bubble league host to several leagues, including the WNBA.
More attention in the sports world is understandably being paid to leagues whose seasons were cut short, such as NASCAR, the NHL, or the NBA, but many never got off the ground. That is at the forefront of increasingly ugly negotiations between MLB and its owners, but it’s also forcing the WNBA to recognize it may not be able to play a full season.
In an extensive investigation on the latest plans for numerous major sports across the globe, ESPN reported that the current shape of the WNBA’s discussions about 2020 “would likely include a shortened season.”
The league has been working with its partners at the NBA to determine what single-site locations could work for them, including Las Vegas, where the WNBA already has a franchise in the Aces and hosted its 2019 All-Star game. At the same time, commissioner Cathy Engelbert admitted that though the league doesn’t have a firm drop-dead date, saying “It may be too late to play our full season at some point; we’re probably going to come up on that by early July.”
The WNBA does have a unique gap in its calendar when it would have taken a break in July for the Tokyo Olympics. However, the league also must be mindful of the players who travel to Europe and Asia in the winter to play professionally, where they often make the majority of their income.
To that end, the WNBA will likely condense its typically spread-out 34-game regular season and could further restrain its playoff schedule, which already includes single-elimination games in the first two rounds and just five games in the Finals.
Because it was supposed to tip off in mid-May, an optimistic July start (remember, the WNBA also never even began training camp) would cut two months off the regular calendar for a league that is already built around the NBA schedule and overseas competitions. In order to prepare for the worst, the WNBA is already assuming it won’t be able to pull off its full schedule.
Sometimes the best new R&B songs can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.
This week, Saint Jhn shares his tropical music video for “Ransom,” Justine Skye delivers her latest “No Options,” and Teyana Taylor dedicates “Made It” to the class of 2020. Check out the rest of the best new R&B songs below.
Saint Jhn — “Ransom”
Fresh off the success of Ghetto Lenny’s Love Songs and viral TikTok track “Roses,” Saint Jhn is keeping the momentum going with the visual for a new somber track titled, “Ransom.” The Grammy Award-nominated artist croons his thoughts about true love in one take while nested in the beauty of Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Justine Skye — “No Options”
Justine Skye‘s Bare With Me EP is coming and this week she offers a taste of it with “No Options.” When a relationship becomes toxic, sometimes it might be hard to leave and Justine touches on this relatable circumstance with the comfort of her voice.
Teyana Taylor — “Made It”
Teyana Taylor broke the internet with her choreography when she teased “Bare Wit Me,” and this week the song came in its entirety as well as the music video for the Class of 2020-dedicated cut “Made It.” The tracks are expected to live on her forthcoming project, The Album, the follow-up to 2018’s KTSE.
PJ — “Counterfeit”
As fans eagerly await for PJ‘s next project, Waiting For Paris, the talented singer-songwriter shares a piece of the upcoming EP with the music video for “Counterfeit.” Out of love and trust, PJ sings her raw and unadulterated thoughts over grand and cheery production.
Bino Rideaux — Outside
Bino Rideaux’s debut mixtape Outside is here. The South Central Los Angeles artist and close Nipsey Hussle collaborator previously released two tracks off the EP, “Brand New” featuring Blxst and “Bet,” ahead of the project’s release and this week he came through with the animated visual for “Cold Feet” featuring Ty Dolla Sign.
Rini — “Bedtime Story”
Burgeoning R&B singer Rini goes to another dimension with his love in an alternate reality, animated visual for his track “Bedtime Story,” which leans on technology advances like FaceTime as way to keep romance alive. It’s hard not to daydream about what it would be like to finally be able to freely go outside again.
Roy Woods — “2 Me”
Roy Woods Dem Times EP was just released last week and this week he delivers the music video for the track “2 Me.” The Dragan Andic-directed video conceptualizes the emotional storytelling Woods conveys on the project.
Derek King — “Stories” Feat. Eric Bellinger
Bay Area singer Derek King connects with Grammy Award-winning singer Eric Bellinger for his latest single “Stories.” Keeping true to social-distancing measures, Derek shares a music video that accurately depicts what it’s like to be in love during the quarantine. King’s forthcoming album Let’s Be Honest is slated for release May 29.
070 Shake — “Microdosing”
We all miss live shows, but in memory of an experience that is near and dear to many, 070 Shake shares a reminder of what a concert looks and feels like with her powerful “Microdosing” performance at Webster Hall in New York City. The track lives on her 2020 album Modus Vivendi.
Jhene Aiko — “B.S.” Feat. HER
Jhene Aiko‘s No. 1 album Chilombo continues to impress and this week she shares an animated visual for her song “B.S.” featuring HER. The pair recently performed an acoustic version of the song for charity and it is easily one of the stand-out cuts on the album.
Mario — “Closer”
R&B veteran Mario’s darkly, rouge animated visual for track “Closer” has arrived. With just a shadow of his silhouette and the curves of a leading lady, Mario gets his provocative and tempting point across by using his richly enchanting vocals to get the object of his affection to come closer.
Check out this week’s R&B picks, plus more on Uproxx’s Spotify playlist below.
As news spread of HBO Max and Zack Snyder joining forces to finally “Release the Snyder Cut” after a long and brutal social media campaign to make the director’s original version of Justice League a reality, one voice was notably absent from the fanfare: Batman himself, Ben Affleck. In fact, it took Affleck almost 24 hours before acknowledging the groundbreaking news on Twitter, and well, his reaction wasn’t exactly full of pep.
It seems like Affleck was simply saving the good stuff, however, for his old pal Kevin Smith. The actor recorded a special Instagram video just for Smith’s Fatman Beyond podcast where he gave a shout out to all of the fans who aggressively lobbied to make Snyder’s original vision come to life. Via Collider:
“I’m very excited that Zack’s getting a chance to finally see his vision realized. I think it’s a great thing. I’m really excited for the fans to get to see it. And I want to say thank you to the fans because it was their enthusiasm and their passion that made it happen. Without fan support I don’t think it ever would have happened. I love Zack and I love his version of the movie and I look forward to everyone getting a chance to see it.”
You can watch Affleck’s message to fans below:
In Affleck’s defense, the Snyder Cut news has to be complicated for the former Batman. While promoting The Way Back earlier in the year, the actor spoke candidly about his decision to leave the iconic superhero role, and how the back-to-back productions for Batman V Superman and Justice League took a toll on his marriage and exacerbated his struggles with alcoholism. With the Snyder Cut requiring voiceover work from Affleck, and talk of a sequel already in the mix, it’s certainly understandable that he’d have a reserved reaction to this surprising development.
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