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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 For a movie about a video game - especially one as popular and as elegant in its simplicity as "Tetris" - Apple TV Plus's new docudrama by that name certainly involves a heck of a lot of lawyers, contractual licenses, bankers, accountants, software engineers, business moguls, KGB agents and Communist Party apparatchiks. That's because "Tetris" isn't just about "Tetris." Rather, this fact-based film set in the 1980s is about the efforts of one man - game designer-turned-entrepreneur Henk Rogers - to secure the publishing rights to the gaming-console version of "Tetris," a battle involving, at various times, such major and minor corporate players as Nintendo, Sega, Mirrorsoft, Bullet-Proof, Andromeda and Atari. This legalese-larded thriller about corporate and political intrigue doesn't just get into the weeds. At times, it strays so far into the thicket that it's more than a little hard … [Read more...] about ‘Tetris’: A heady Cold War thriller about the fight over a video game

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 12 TUBA CITY, Ariz. - Brandon Whiterock stared at his mother's grave, a collection of incongruous stones carefully configured above the ruddy, dusty desert soil, and contemplated all that had changed since her second burial. Twenty years ago, in March 2003, Lori Piestewa, a U.S. soldier, was listed as missing in action during the hellish and confused early hours of America's war in Iraq. Her convoy was ambushed, leading to the capture and eventual deaths of several troops, Piestewa among them. As her family would learn, the 23-year-old was fatally wounded in a frantic race to help others flee the kill zone, and her remains were crudely buried outside of an Iraqi hospital. U.S. personnel were dispatched later to recover the captives and remains, including Piestewa's body. Anguish washed over the Hopi tribal community in Arizona, … [Read more...] about The children of troops lost to Iraq War are all grown up

NEW YORK - After a week-long media circus surrounding the grand jury that may soon indict former president Donald Trump, the fake news finally arrived. Actual fake news, in the form of made-up Gotham City TV stations. On Saturday and Sunday, the production for the sequel to 2019's "Joker" - a film about a psychopathic criminal who becomes an inadvertent populist hero and throws a fictional New York into chaos - staged multiple scenes of mass protests (accompanied by Gotham City media coverage) in Lower Manhattan. Just across the street was the courthouse where Trump is facing possible criminal charges regarding hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. The former president had called on social media for his followers to "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK" and warned of "death and destruction" if he was indicted. But the 700 extras playing pro- or anti-Joker demonstrators over two days of the movie shoot easily outnumbered the pro-Trump … [Read more...] about Trump and ‘Joker 2’ collide in New York. Or is that Gotham City?

The Monaco Grand Prix may be feted as the most glamorous event in Formula One but as a race it often doesn’t quite cut it. That was the case again this year as the ‘jewel in the crown of the F1 season’ attained an average score of just 6.132 out of ten. That placed it above only the Spanish Grand Prix in the races so far this year, but it did get a higher score than last season. The build-up to the grand prix was dominated by the revelation of Mercedes’ secret tyre test in Spain. But that seemed to have little bearing on how F1 Fanatic readers rated the race. Views were split between those who enjoyed the action that followed the red flag and those who pointed out there was no real fight at the front and the top drivers were forced to back off and preserve their tyres: I really enjoyed that race: Excellent drive from Rosberg, good luck for Vettel and Webber, bad luck for Hamilton, Button?������s finishing position surprised me but was welcome, Sutil was everything Perez was … [Read more...] about Glamorous Monaco fails to gain high rating · RaceFans

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 9 ALBUHISHMA, Iraq - The smoke above the American air base was sometimes thick enough to blot out the sun. At first, residents had no idea what the foreign troops were burning. Before long, they were struggling to breathe. Farmers would return home with soot streaks on their forearms and stories about what soldiers had tipped into the burn pit that day: batteries, human waste, plastic ration packs, even refrigerators. "We were always coughing," recalls Tamim Ahmed al-Tamimi, who worked the fields back then outside Joint Base Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. "But we didn't know that this smoke could kill people. We thought that only rockets could kill people." Twenty years on from the American-led invasion of Iraq, the scars are still visible in shot-up walls and bombed out buildings. But there is another legacy too, more insidious and enduring … [Read more...] about U.S. veterans won justice for burn pit exposure. Iraqis were forgotten.

Editor’s note: This story includes graphic descriptions of injuries, and one graphic image taken from inside a classroom. We are not publishing images of injured or deceased victims. UVALDE — Once they saw a torrent of bullets tear through a classroom wall and metal door, the first police officers in the hallway of Robb Elementary School concluded they were outgunned. And that they could die. The gunman had an AR-15, a rifle design used by U.S. soldiers in every conflict since Vietnam. Its bullets flew toward the officers at three times the speed of sound and could have pierced their body armor like a hole punch through paper. They grazed two officers in the head, and the group retreated. Uvalde Police Department Sgt. Daniel Coronado stepped outside, breathing heavily, and got on his radio to warn the others. “I have a male subject with an AR,” Coronado said. The dispatch crackled on the radio of another officer on the opposite side of the building. “Fuck,” that officer … [Read more...] about ‘He has a battle rifle’: Police feared Uvalde gunman’s AR-15

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 With the popular resurgence of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, it was only a matter of time before a movie studio got hold of it. I mean, another movie studio. Yes, there was a trilogy in the 2000s, with Part 2 made for TV and Part 3 going straight to video. But no, they have nothing to do with the new "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," which features a new all-star cast and better succeeds in selling the D&D experience to a wider audience than die-hard players. Here's the backstory, which unspools during a parole board hearing that opens the film: Chris Pine plays Edgin Darvis - or Ed, as he is known - a virtuosic thief who, with friends Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), Simon (Justice Smith) and Forge (Hugh Grant), had teamed up with the wizard Sofina (Daisy Head) to rob a vault full of riches, including a magical tablet that would allow Ed to resurrect his … [Read more...] about The new ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ film mostly captures the game’s magic

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America By Abraham Riesman Atria. 452 pp. $29.99 - - - The history of professional wrestling is a story of fixed matches, false narratives and the bloodthirsty consolidation of power. Standing at the heart of this uniquely violent hybrid of sport and entertainment is WWE majority owner and executive chairman Vince McMahon, the (uncooperative) subject of Abraham Riesman's revelatory new biography, "Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America." Riesman's book is a captivating dive into a spectacle that cannot genuinely be categorized as a real sport but that nonetheless relies on the talents of world-class athletes. It's a story that feels urgent today, thanks in part to McMahon's recent appearances in the news. He retired as the chief executive of WWE in 2022, in the wake of allegations that he had paid millions to suppress accusations of sexual misconduct and infidelity. In the process of unpacking how we got here, … [Read more...] about Book World: How Vince McMahon and his wrestling empire explain America