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A New Banksy Piece Was Stolen A Mere Hour After It Had Been Confirmed To Be Legit

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There’s a new Banksy, but you had to be lucky to see it. Per The Guardian, on Friday a stop sign located in south London was festooned with some curious annotations. Attached to it were three model drones, an apparent commentary on Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza. It was later confirmed to be a Banksy by the artist themself. And then, less than an hour later, it was gone.

In videos shared on social media, two men are seen dismantling the piece, which was located at the intersection of Southampton Way and Commercial Way in Peckham. They then walk away with the adorned stop sign as onlookers gasp and comment on its theft.

It’s not believed that Banksy was involved with the piece’s removal.

London police are aware of the incident and are searching for those who absconded with Banksy’s piece. Jasmine Ali, deputy leader of the Southwark council, which lords over the area that briefly housed the piece, was appalled by its removal.

“We’d like it back so everyone in the community can enjoy Banksy’s brilliant work,” Ali said.

Though sometimes Banksy is involved in the mysterious disappearance (or shredding) of his work, sometimes it’s mere theft. That’s the case in 2015, when a tribute to the those lost in the Bataclan terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 90 people, was straight-up stolen.

(Via The Guardian)

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Country Music’s Hottest Momma Dolly Parton Says She Has No Regrets Over Her Decision Not To Have Children

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Dolly Parton is indisputably the mother of country music. While Parton serves as a maternal figure to many musicians and even the Godmother to Miley Cyrus, in her personal life, she and her notoriously private husband, Carl Thomas Dean, have never had a baby of their own.

On Saturday, December 23, in conversation with Exceptional, Parton revealed that she doesn’t regret that decision even now, at the age of 77. “I haven’t missed it like I thought I might,” she said. “When you’re a young couple, you think you’re going to have kids, but it just wasn’t one of those burning things for me. I had my career and my music, and I was traveling.”

Parton added, “If I’d had kids, I’d have stayed home with them, I’m sure, and worried myself to death about them. With everything that’s going on, I’d hate to be bringing a child into this world right now. I always say God didn’t let me have children so that all kids could be mine.”

During her chat, Parton also emphasized that her outreach work through Imagination Library has allowed her to support children worldwide. The initiative helped to deliver 220 million books to children across the globe. Find more information here.

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Trump’s Defense For Repeatedly Invoking Hitler Is That He Doesn’t Know Jack About History

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Donald Trump has always given off strong authoritarian vibes, but recently he’s up the ante. How? By straight-up paraphrasing Adolf Hitler. The former president added a new routine in which he rails against immigrants who he said are “poisoning the blood of our country.” As it happens that’s the exact phrasing Hitler used to use to describe Jewish people. Is Trump quoting him intentionally? He’s said no, offering an unusual defense: He doesn’t know jack about history.

Per The Daily Beast, Trump did a softball interview with Hugh Hewitt, who, like Sean Hannity, tried to get him to say, once and for all, that he’s going full dictator. It went…sort of well.

“I’m not a student of Hitler,” Trump told Hewitt. “I never read his works. They say that he said something about blood, he didn’t say it the way I said it either, by the way, it’s a very different kind of a statement.”

Then Trump went right back to paraphrasing Hitler.

“They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump again said of immigrants. “They’re terrorists, absolutely, that’s poisoning our country, that’s poisoning the blood of our country.”

When Hewitt again stressed that Hitler once used that exactly language to describe Jews, Trump tried a different defense, claiming he didn’t mean anything racist when he described large groups of people as “poisoning the blood” of the nation, adding that he’s “doing incredibly” in polls with Black and Hispanic voters.

Last week an old Vanity Fair piece from 1990, in which this then-wife Ivana Trump revealed that Trump kept a book of Hitler speeches in a “cabinet by his bed,” which he sometimes read. It was not Mein Kampf; rather, it was a collection called My New Order. Trump even admitted he had a Hitler book, which he said was given to him by a Jewish person (who later revealed he wasn’t Jewish).

It’s long been ambiguous whether Trump can actually read, or if he simply doesn’t have the attention span to read anything more than a teleprompter, which he rarely uses. But before his brain turned to mush, perhaps he did read some Hitler speeches. Maybe he simply read the Führer’s “poisoning the blood” words, thought that was a cool turn of phrase, forgot where he read it, then a few decades later was out there quoting Adolf Hitler. If so, whoops!

(Via The Daily Beast)

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Incredibly Broke And Ruined Rudy Giuliani Was Spotted Hitting Up An ATM Shortly After Filing For Bankruptcy

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Rudy Giuliani has made many enemies over his long career, but even the mobsters he once helped imprison must feel kind of bad for him now. Last week, the incredibly broke former “America’s mayor” had two, possibly three new humiliations to add to the pile. For one he was ordered to pay $148 million to the election workers he, well, continues to defame, which isn’t helping. Then he declared bankruptcy.

Now, per TMZ, the once mighty New Yorker — who steered the city through the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, who helped make the city safer (and, perhaps inevitably, more boring), who even had a TV movie made about him starring James Woods (!!) — was seen hitting up an ATM like a schnook. Perhaps he wants some walking around money before his account is locked for good.

The sighting came Thursday, shortly after Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 in court, claiming that he owes too much money to too many people, and not just the women he (again) continues to defame with wild tales of election fraud. He’s also racked up sky high legal bills. All the while the man for whom Giuliani wrecked his life, one Donald Trump, has barely lifted a finger to help him.

Since declaring bankruptcy because he decided to get in on Trump’s wackadoodle attempts to overturn democracy, Giuliani has already found dodgy ways to make some quick bucks: He’s been hawking non-FDA-approved supplements. The TV movie sequel about his life, also starring James Woods, ought to be riveting.

(Via TMZ)

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Kevin Durant Got A Technical Foul For Walking On The Floor From The Bench After A Dunk

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NBA players can get pretty fired up while celebrating a dunk. This is especially true when they’re on the bench and one of their teammates throw down, as guys will take the fact that they’re not in the game to have some fun since they don’t have to worry about getting back on defense or anything.

During Friday night’s game between the Phoenix Suns and the Sacramento Kings, Kevin Durant got a little too excited on the heels of a dunk by Udoka Azubuike. Durant was on the bench, and was happy to see the former Kansas standout reel in an offensive rebound, get Domantas Sabonis in the air, and throw down. As such, he jumped off the bench and started to scream some encouragement at his teammate … only he went a little too far onto the court while the Kings were bringing the ball up, so he got hit with a technical foul.

You can see that Durant and a few of his teammates laughed at the whole thing, but one guy who wasn’t especially happy was Devin Booker, who gave it to the refs over the decision and picked up a technical of his own. It appeared that his gripe was over Durant getting hit with a technical foul for something the Kings were doing as well, but perhaps KD can take some solace in knowing this is the rare technical foul given out to someone for being a good teammate.

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Blueface Is Reportedly Being Sued For Defamation After Claiming He Was The Father Of Soulja Boy’s Son

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Blueface is now being sued for defamation, according to Rolling Stone, after he claimed he was the father of Soulja Boy‘s son. Jackilyn Martinez, the mother of the son she shares with Soulja Boy, was the one to file it in Los Angeles today.

The publication notes that she claimed her lawyers sent Blueface a cease-and-desist, following social media posts that he made about him being the father. “Might be my kid he ain’t even get the DNA test,” the rapper reportedly wrote in a post. In another, he claimed that he had sex with Soulja Boy’s “baby mama the day before your baby shower.”

“There is zero chance that the defendant is plaintiff’s child’s biological father,” Martinez’s filing read, per the outlet.

Martinez filed the lawsuit after Blueface had reportedly mocked the cease-and-desist on social media, which resulted in her getting death threats.

“Plaintiff is gravely concerned for herself and her child’s safety and well being, and plaintiff is extremely nervous and afraid to go outside and/or be in public,” she added in the filing. Martinez notes that she also believes Blueface is making the comments to get attention by “engaging in a feud” with Soulja Boy.

As part of the lawsuit, she is seeking “real and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and a permanent injunction barring Porter from defaming her.”

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Cardi B And Offset Are Reportedly Being Sued For Causing $85,000 In ‘Significant Property Damage’

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Cardi B and Offset have reportedly been sued for both not paying rent and causing “significant property damage” on a Beverly Hills vacation home, according to TMZ. The publication claims that, from the court documents, the two left the property in October 2023, and did not provide notice to the landlord.

On top of this, the landlord who filed the lawsuit is also alleging that Cardi B and Offset owe at least $85,000 in the damages caused, which include “permanent scratches in the tile floors, rugs, and curtains, broken furniture, holes in the walls, and burn marks on things like tables, counters, and cabinets.” He claims he has been unable to contact either of them.

The alleged lawsuit follows Cardi B and Offset’s public split, which has played out on social media over the past few weeks. “I’m curious for a new life — for a new beginning,” Cardi revealed on a livestream just a couple of days ago. “And yeah, I’m excited.”

She also hopped on Twitter, directly tagging him in tweets about how she was fully planning to “take it there” about how he had been sucky to her.

It’s still unclear what caused their split, or if the dispute on the property with the landlord had anything to do with it.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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5 Seconds Of Summer Dropped Their New Tour Documentary, Which Includes Footage Of Their Amsterdam Show

5 Seconds Of Summer dropped their new tour documentary, The 5 Seconds of Summer Show, which is now available on YouTube. The footage was recorded at the band’s Amsterdam concert in October, as they continued their tour of the same title.

Along with footage from the concert, there are clips of the band discussing the process of working on the tour — and their anniversary as a group.

“From the beginning, when we set out to do the tour, we really wanted to get the vibe right of like, what’s the tone that’s being set at the beginning of every 5SOS show?” the band’s guitarist, Michael Clifford, said in the doc, according to Rolling Stone. “And how can we make the light that’s kept us going of humor and fun mixed with high-energy shows.”

“Doing this tour, and it being so well received, has even more ignited this new frame of mind for the band,” lead band member Luke Hemmings shared. “We can have these songs that maybe sound like this and feel more in touch with the younger songs we wrote, but also going forward into a next album and tour, personally not being afraid of having a bit more fun with it and really capturing what the spirit of the band is.”

Check out 5 Seconds Of Summer’s new tour documentary above.

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Flavor Flav Said There Was ‘No Beef’ Ever Between Him And Chuck D, Despite The Rumors Over A Break

Flavor Flav recently opened up to TMZ to set the record straight about rumors regarding him and Chuck D, the other half of Public Enemy, having tension within their professional and personal relationship.

“A lot of people been asking me, ‘When is Public Enemy going to reunite?’” Flav said. “We never broke up to reunite. We just took a long break.”

“There wasn’t no beef,” he added. “I love my partner, man. And I know he loves me, too. You know what I’m saying? Sometimes, you know, you don’t see eye to eye on everything.”

Flavor Flav and Chuck D had a brief reunion to perform at the iHeartRadio Music Festival back in September. To be fair, it also hasn’t been that long since Public Enemy dropped a new album, as their last one was in 2020 with What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?. During their recent concert, they even premiered “Everywhere Man,” a new single that they have planned for a future release.

“One thing about me and Chuck, we always manage to pull it back together to see eye to eye and to keep moving forward,” Flavor Flav pointed out about their specific dynamic.

Check out the clip of Flavor Flav discussing how he feels about Chuck D above.

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Dante Exum Finally Found His Role In The NBA With The Mavericks

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The NBA is typically a one-way door. When a player leaves for another league, it signals that they no longer meet the demands of the league or teams no longer view someone as an NBA-caliber player.

That’s what makes Dante Exum’s reemergence particularly interesting. Exum was taken fifth in the 2014 NBA Draft by Utah as a 6’5, dynamic point guard who could both run the show and fill in the gaps as an off-ball player. Exum never actualized his talent in Utah due to a litany of injuries that took his entire second season and limited his contributions moving forward. He would only play 215 games through five seasons before being traded to Cleveland in 2020, where he would play just 30 games through the 2021 campaign.

In Exum’s first NBA stint, his skills as a disruptive driver who doubled as a connective passer popped off the screen. He also became an infamous point of attack defender in the 2018 playoffs, when Utah deployed the devious plot to defend James Harden from behind on pick-and-roll actions. Utah could only deploy that scheme because Exum was long enough to disrupt Harden and quick enough to potentially get back in front of him on drives. Somewhere in Exum was a high-level basketball player, but injuries mixed with an inconsistent jumper prevented that player from ever coming to fruition.

In 2021, Exum went to the Europe to play for FC Barcelona, where most would assume that he would become a Remember Some Guys All-Star. But something happened while he was abroad: He sharpened his best basketball traits while improving the jumper that plagued him in the NBA. Exum shot 52 percent from on just over one attempt per game in his first EuroLeague season and then followed up by shooting 42 percent on over two attempts per game the following year. The shooting uptick was encouraging, but certainly not a big enough swing to guarantee a return to the NBA.

However, the Dallas Mavericks signed Exum to a minimum deal last offseason after bringing on former Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey as a consultant — Lindsey drafted Exum in 2014 and played a large role in the signing. Entering the season, Exum had a small bench role as the third point guard behind Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. It was unclear as to how much Exum would play due to those two needing the ball and the team’s desire to get reps for young guards Josh Green and Jaden Hardy. But as the season has progressed, Exum has gone from a guy who positively impacts the game in small stretches to an important part of the team’s rotation.

In 13 November games, Exum averaged just 11 minutes a night and shot a pedestrian 26 percent on threes, but he had an 8.7 net rating in his time on the floor. Most importantly, Exum flourished next to Doncic and Irving by initiating sets and allowing both of them to enter their pick-and-roll actions on the move. Dallas has quietly made the offense less taxing on its biggest star by allowing other players to bring the ball up the floor and initiate sets, thereby reducing the amount of time the ball is in Doncic’s hands. Exum, Doncic, and Irving have logged 40 minutes together this season and have a plus-49.8 net rating in that small sample size.

Just as Exum was hitting his stride alongside that duo, the Mavericks were hit with injuries to both Irving and Green, which forced Exum into a secondary ball-handling role. The role elevation led to the best stretch of Exum’s career. In eight December games, Exum is averaging 16.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game on 62 percent from the field and a ridiculous 53 percent on threes. This included a 26-point performance in a nationally televised win against the Lakers where Exum splashed seven threes — the Lakers game planned to leave Exum open and he made them pay.

The three-point shooting has been the headliner for Exum’s game, but he has also shown the finishing skills that made him a top-5 pick. Exum’s length and quickness allowed him to consistently get into the paint early in his career, but he often got into the paint without a plan or didn’t have the strength to finish around the rim. This season, Exum is shooting 73 percent within five feet of the rim. It’s a welcome sight for a Maverick team that struggles to create consistent rim pressure outside of Doncic and Irving. Exum caffeinates the Maverick offense, and when he gets to the rim, it’s a high percentage shot. When Exum is on the floor, the Mavericks pace is 102.75. Last season, they ranked 28th in pace at just 97.2.

Exum won’t maintain his hellfire three-point percentage, but if he can settle into being a consistent option, he has all the tools to be one of the best role players in basketball. He’s a big, high IQ guard who can make both Irving and Doncic better while also filling in if either misses a game. Exum’s first stint in the league didn’t go as plan, but he went to Europe, refined his game, and came back as a player who will have a role in the NBA for some time.