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Sideshow: Trevor Noah and the flood: Tweets roil Twitter

How's that saying go? "There's no such thing as bad publicity"? Just ask Trevor Noah, 31, who has made headlines after raising the ire of the irate, less than 24 hours after Comedy Central announced that he was to replace Jon Stewart as the host of faux-news/meta-news show The Daily Show.

"Like many comedians, Trevor Noah pushes boundaries," Comedy Central said after critics delved into the Tweets of the new host of "The Daily Show."
"Like many comedians, Trevor Noah pushes boundaries," Comedy Central said after critics delved into the Tweets of the new host of "The Daily Show."Read moreBYRON KEULEMANS

Trevor Noah's baptism by fire

How's that saying go? "There's no such thing as bad publicity"? Just ask Trevor Noah, 31, who has made headlines after raising the ire of the irate, less than 24 hours after Comedy Central announced that he was to replace Jon Stewart as the host of faux-news/meta-news show The Daily Show.

A slew of commentators, pundits, fans, busybodies, and layabouts have taken to the blogosphere to complain about Mr. Noah's brand of comedy.

One TV critic has bemoaned the South Africa-born comic's tendency to mock African Americans in his stand-up routine. In a 2012 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Noah joked that black Americans should not be called African American. "They're not African, but we'll play along," he said. He went on to mock parents who gave their children traditional African names.

Most of the anger has been aimed at Noah's tweets, which some argue mark him as a misogynist and anti-Semite.

"Behind every successful Rap Billionaire is a double as rich Jewish man," reads one of the 9,000 tweets Noah has sent since joining Twitter in 2009. He currently has about two million followers.

In another, Noah jokes about almost bumping a "Jewish kid" with his "German car," while yet others speak derisively of the derrieres of overweight women.

Comedy Central backs its star. "Like many comedians, Trevor Noah pushes boundaries," the cabler said Tuesday. "He is provocative and spares no one, himself included. To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair."

Durst's Philly protectors

Real estate heir and murder suspect Robert Durst, 71, paid a Philly biker gang called the Kensington Gang Bangers for protection while serving a short stint in federal prison in New Jersey, says news outlet Vice. Reporter Seth Ferranti writes he spent time with Durst at Federal Correctional Institution, Fairton, in Cumberland County, where Durst was held for bond-jumping and evidence-tampering related to the shooting death of his 71-year-old neighbor, Morris Black.

Gang members "would make sure nobody tried to strong-arm him," writes Ferranti. Durst, who has been implicated in three murders, is the subject of the HBO docu The Jinx. Acquitted of killing Black, he later was implicated in, but never arrested in connection with, the disappearance of his wife, Kathleen. And on March 15 he was arrested in connection with the 2000 slaying of Susan Berman. He's currently in custody.

- Molly Eichel

Kim's less important relative

British Prime Minister David Cameron has revealed to Heat mag that he is "13th cousins" with Kim Kardashian and her K-sisters. The Etonian said he and the world-famous gals have an ancestor in common named Sir William Spencer, who was born in 1555.

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