All posts tagged: avoided

Valerie Perrine, Oscar-nominated Lenny and Superman actor who narrowly avoided Manson tragedy, dies aged 82

Valerie Perrine, Oscar-nominated Lenny and Superman actor who narrowly avoided Manson tragedy, dies aged 82

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Valerie Perrine, the Oscar-nominated actor best known for her performances in Lenny and Superman, has died. She was 82. The Texas-born actor started her career as a showgirl in Las Vegas. Prior to her film career, Perrine was invited to a party at Sharon Tate’s home in 1969 by Hollywood hair stylist Jay Sebring. She was unable to attend, and that night the Manson Family murdered six people including Sebring. In 2022, Perrine was the subject of Stacey Souther’s documentary Valerie, which looked back at her career and her resilience after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015. Her death was announced by Souther in a post on Perrine’s official Facebook page. She wrote: “It is with deep sadness that I share the heartbreaking news that Valerie has passed away. She faced Parkinson’s disease with incredible courage and compassion, never once …

Netflix Just Avoided an Million Headache

Netflix Just Avoided an $80 Million Headache

Published by Daniella Wilson

When the news broke yesterday that Netflix had dropped out of the monthslong bidding war to control Warner Bros. Discovery—including its massive film library, range of TV networks, and news empire—the streamer’s stock immediately jumped. It was a curious market reaction, but one that seemed to reflect the deep mistrust that Netflix’s investors, and much of the media industry at large, had about the proposed deal. The company has built up huge profits and a gigantic market share partly by avoiding businesses such as movie theaters, cable television, and 24-hour news channels. Why would it suddenly be interested in them? We may never know what Netflix had planned to do with Warner Bros. Discovery, a conglomeration that houses movie-production companies, HBO, DC Comics, CNN, and various other cable properties, such as Discovery Channel. (In its deal structure, Netflix was going to purchase HBO and the Warner Bros. film studios, while WBD would spin off the less-profitable linear cable networks separately.) But the combination of Netflix’s streaming assets with the HBO Max platform’s prestigious offerings, for …

I built a RetroPie console on a Raspberry Pi 3B — and avoided the usual mistakes

I built a RetroPie console on a Raspberry Pi 3B — and avoided the usual mistakes

Published by skeptic

I grew up when retro gaming wasn’t retro. It was just … well, gaming. My first computer was a first-release Commodore 64, which sounded like it was thinking very hard all the time. Games took ages to load. If something didn’t work, you didn’t assume the system was broken. You assumed you’d done something wrong. That mindset has stuck with me, and is probably one of the reasons I flirt so much with Linux. I’ve installed RetroPie on a Raspberry Pi 3B more times than I should ever admit. Sometimes because I wanted to, and sometimes because I had to, after breaking it in a completely avoidable way. I’ve flashed the wrong image. I’ve used a power supply that was “close enough.” I’ve yanked the cable instead of shutting down properly. Every time I thought, “RetroPie is unstable,” but turns out it’s just me that’s unstable. The Pi 3B is one of the most dependable little machines you can build. But it’s dependable in the same way old hardware was dependable. Treat it right and …

Starmer slams Trump’s ‘appalling’ claims that NATO troops avoided front lines in Afghanistan

Starmer slams Trump’s ‘appalling’ claims that NATO troops avoided front lines in Afghanistan

Published by Sam Flores

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Friday denounced as “insulting” Donald Trump’s claim that British troops avoided the front line in Afghanistan, amid widespread anger at the US president’s remarks. In an interview with Fox News aired on Thursday, Trump appeared unaware that 457 British soldiers were among NATO troops who died during the conflict in the country following the September 11 attacks on the United States. “They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan,” Trump told the US outlet, referring to NATO allies. “And they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines,” he added, triggering outrage across the political divide in the UK. Trump also repeated his suggestion that NATO would not come to the aid of the United States if asked to do so. In fact, following the 9/11 attacks, the UK and a number of other allies joined the US from 2001 in Afghanistan after it invoked NATO’s collective security clause for the first and only time. Watch moreAfghanistan War: 20 years on, US “finally” accepts “army was …

How “Bitcoin Jesus” avoided prison, thanks to one of the “Friends of Trump”

How “Bitcoin Jesus” avoided prison, thanks to one of the “Friends of Trump”

Published by Sam Flores

Days into President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, a cryptocurrency billionaire posted a video on X to his hundreds of thousands of followers. “Please Donald Trump, I need your help,” he said, wearing a flag pin askew and seated awkwardly in an armchair. “I am an American. … Help me come home.” The speaker, 46-year-old Roger Ver, was in fact no longer a U.S. citizen. Nicknamed “Bitcoin Jesus” for his early evangelism for digital currency, Ver had renounced his citizenship more than a decade earlier. At the time of his video, Ver was under criminal indictment for millions in tax evasion and living on the Spanish island of Mallorca. His top-flight legal defense team had failed around half a dozen times to persuade the Justice Department to back down. The U.S., considering him a fugitive, was seeking his extradition from Spain, and he was likely looking at prison. Once, prosecutors hoped to make Ver a marquee example amid concerns about widespread cryptocurrency tax evasion. They had spent eight painstaking years working the …

Trump under fire for claiming NATO allies avoided Afghanistan frontline | World News

Trump under fire for claiming NATO allies avoided Afghanistan frontline | World News

Published by Sam Flores

Donald Trump has been criticised for claiming NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan. In an interview with Fox News in Davos, the US president repeated his criticism of NATO, saying he was not “sure” the alliance would “be there if we ever needed them”. He added: “We’ve never needed them. “They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan… and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.” Sky News US correspondent David Blevins said the comments would be deemed “grossly offensive” by allies who fought alongside the US. America is the only NATO member to have invoked the collective security provisions of its Article 5 clause – that an attack against one member is an attack on all. That came after the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001, which led to a US-led invasion of Afghanistan. The UK suffered the second-highest number of military deaths in the Afghanistan conflict at 457. The US saw 2,461 deaths. America’s allies suffered 1,160 deaths during the conflict – around a third …