Billionaire friend of Putin’s daughter defied sanctions to import world’s finest wines into Russia

A friend of Vladimir Putin’s daughter managed to import bottles of the world’s most expensive wines into Russia last year despite Western sanctions, according to public filings.

Pharmaceutical billionaire Alexey Repik’s company Ryatiko brought in ten bottles of Henri Jayer wine, which fetched £184,000 a bottle at a Christie’s auction in 2020.

Roger Ailes Accuser Sues Fox News and Trump’s Ex-Comms Director

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A former Fox News employee who previously came forward with sickening accusations of sexual servitude against Roger Ailes is suing the network, its parent company, and a former producer who worked in the Trump White House.

Laura Luhn, who in 2021 told The Daily Beast that Fox’s lawyers were trying to intimidate her, filed her lawsuit Wednesday in New York state court, detailing the decades of sexual abuse and assault she says she suffered under the late Fox executive.

“Ailes’s abuse of Luhn was among the worst he inflicted on his many victims,” the complaint says. “At their very first encounter, Ailes set the stage by blackmailing Luhn and taking videos of her performing coerced sex acts. He physically forced Luhn to perform oral sex on him regularly. And he constantly reminded Luhn that he ‘owned’ her, that she was his ‘sex slave,’ and that she was forbidden from telling anyone about the abuse or he would make her pay dearly.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Update: ‘Squid Game’ Reality Show Players Weren’t Seriously Injured in Cold Weather, Netflix Says

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While in the midst of producing Squid Game: The Challenge, its reality competition series spinoff of the narrative dystopian hit Squid Game, Netflix has been forced to address reports of participants suffering under freezing conditions while filming in the UK, Deadline reports.

On Tuesday, The Sun reported that some of the 456 participants in the first game being filmed for the reality series, “Red Light, Green Light,” had to be stretchered off the playing field. Others, according to one anonymous player, “left in tears” due to filming in 27-degree weather.

“It was like a war zone,” one player told The Sun. “Even if hypothermia kicked in then people were willing to stay for as long as possible because a lot of money was on the line,” another said. “Too many were determined not to move, so they stood there for far too long.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scientists Created a Real-Life T-1000 Terminator That Melts on Command

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images

How is real life like the plot of the movie Terminator 2? Let me count the ways.

A scarily powerful artificial intelligence based on a neural network? Check.

Humanity as close as it’s ever been to an apocalypse? Check.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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