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Singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson has always done things his way, and his iconoclasm will be in full force in July when he releases an album under the nom de plume “Johnny Blue Skies” — which he’s indicating will be the name that all his future albums will come out under. But for the purposes of touring, he will remain Sturgill Simpson. Whether splitting that difference is by preference, or because major venue operators are unlikely to book shows for a major artist under a pseudonym, is unknown. But he will be hitting the road under the name Sturgill Simpson this fall, with 28 show over the course of two and a half months of shows in arenas, theaters and amphitheaters, starting with a date at L.A.’s Greek Theatre on Sept. 14.Simpson’s first album under the name is Johnny Blue Skies is the eight-track “Passage du Desir,” due out July 12 on his own independent label, High Top Mountain Records. A press release notes that “after promising to release only five studio albums under his ow...

“You know what what would be cool is if we told my story with Lego pieces,” Lego Pharrell tells the similarly-bricked director Morgan Neville (the Oscar-winning documentarian behind “20 Feet From Stardom”), who chuckles politely and asks, “Seriously?” Pharrell replies: “Just be open.” The colorfully and creatively reimagined scene is pretty close to how the conversation played out nearly five years ago, Neville says, as he and Williams sign on to a Zoom chat to discuss how this innovative project came together. And the result is unlike anything he’s ever done — or seen — before. “What we made is not like any other movie. I don’t know what a comp for it would be,” he explains of the psychedelic-looking visuals that seem to be infused with joy as much as they are music. “People can try and label it. It’s just its own film. It’s mind-blowing, in a way, the freedom that we were able to put together in the film, but that only works if you’re channeling your subject.”As the clip illustrat...

 There has been no official confirmation from the Football Association and England boss Gareth Southgate has a press conference at 18:00 BST on Thursday before the final pre-tournament friendly with Iceland at Wembley on Friday. However, 31-year-old Maguire has not recovered sufficiently from a calf injury he sustained in April which kept him out of United’s FA Cup final victory over City last month. Grealish, 28, remained on the bench throughout that game, as he did for the key Premier League matches against Tottenham and West Ham at the end of the season. The former Aston Villa player did feature for England as a substitute in their 3-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday when he earned praise for his performance. He said: "I'm devastated not to have been selected to play for England at the Euros this summer. Despite my best efforts, I've not been able to overcome an injury to my calf. Maybe I pushed myself too hard, to try and make it. Simply, I am absolutely gutted...

 The Los Angeles Lakers are targeting UConn men's basketball coach Dan Hurley as the franchise's next coach and are preparing a massive, long-term contract offer to bring the back-to-back NCAA national champion to the NBA, sources told ESPN. The Lakers have had preliminary contact with Hurley and the sides are planning to escalate discussions in the coming days, sources told ESPN. Hurley has been at the forefront of the Lakers' search from the beginning of the process, even while the organization has done its due diligence interviewing several other candidates, sources said. Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka and governor Jeanie Buss are eager to formally discuss with Hurley their vision of marrying his dominant program -- built upon his tactical acumen and his elite player development -- with the storied Lakers brand, sources said. Hurley, 51, has often described his ambition to one day coach in the NBA and has expressed to the...

 For a fourth time in a little more than a year, SpaceX is preparing to launch a test mission of its massive Starship rocket from its development facility in southern Texas called Starbase. The launch, dubbed Flight 4, will push the launch vehicle towards its goal of being a mostly reusable rocket. Similarly to the previous three launches, Flight 4 will not include a payload and will fly a suborbital trajectory. Liftoff is set for 7:50 a.m. CDT (8:50 a.m. EDT, 1250 UTC), near the opening of a 120-minute window. Spaceflight Now will have joint live coverage alongside LabPadre beginning at 7:00 a.m. EDT (1100 UTC). On Wednesday, SpaceX stacked the Ship upper stage (Ship 29) on top of the Super Heavy Booster (Booster 11) to create the 121 m (397 ft) Starship rocket. Both components will be expended as a result of the flight, but the way SpaceX structured the mission, it hopes this will demonstrate their future reuse capabilities. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on June 1, SpaceX ...

 There's a deadly sexually transmitted disease that turns cicadas into "zombies" -- and it's already been detected in parts of the Midwest, experts said. It's a real problem that “is even stranger than science fiction,” University of Connecticut entomologist John Cooley said. “This is a sexually transmitted zombie diseaseFungus that turns cicadas into ‘zombies' detected in Midwest: ReportThe fungal parasite is called Massospora cicadina and it targets periodical cicadas in particular. "It turns infected cicadas into “zombie insects” that disperse more fungus by causing males infected with Stage I to produce wing-flick signals as if they were females– making them highly attractive to cicadas of both sexes," according to the University of Connecticut. The white fungus takes over the male, their gonads are torn from their body and chalky spores are spread around to nearby other cicadas, Cooley said. The insects are sterilized, not killed. This way the...