Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who represented former President Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, has been disbarred from practicing law in the District of Columbia, a local appeals court ruled Thursday.

Giuliani's law license in the District of Columbia had been temporarily suspended since the summer 2021, but the one-page decision from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals orders the former federal prosecutor to be disbarred. Records show Giuliani was admitted to the D.C. Bar in 1976.

The appeals court ruled that Giuliani should be disbarred in D.C. because he had been disbarred in New York in July, citing rules of reciprocity between the two jurisdictions. The order noted that Giuliani had the opportunity "to show cause why reciprocal discipline should not be imposed" but never filed a response.

Giuliani has also been the focus of a separate disbarment proceeding in Washington. In that case, the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility recommended in May that Giuliani lose his license for good over his efforts to reverse the election results in Pennsylvania and claims made in a federal lawsuit that elections boards there were engaged in a scheme to rig the election against Trump. President Biden won the state of Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes.

r*ddit

I don't think this counts as a meme (so feel free to remove), but I found it pretty amusing.

In February, Moody's downgraded Israel's rating to A2. The upcoming change reflects not only the geopolitical escalation but also Moody's lack of confidence in the Israeli government's ability to manage fiscal consolidation and reduce debt.

Credit rating agency Moody's is set to release an updated rating on Friday which is expected to downgrade Israel's credit rating to A3, equivalent to an A- rating by other agencies.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/25805705

Alternative link where I'm told the story is written better, but unfortunately has a signup wall and I'm not willing to sign up https://www.404media.co/paralyzed-jockey-loses-ability-to-walk-after-manufacturer-refuses-to-fix-battery-for-his-100-000-exoskeleton/

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I am an EU citizen and I was informed that my EURAXESS account was breached. They informed me that while the password wasn't stolen, all of my personal data including addresses, IDs from the CV was stolen and made available on some website.

They say that they're working towards making the site secure, etc., but I know that my personal info is out there. They have even told me to watch out for scams and phishing attempts over the next few months to come.

I am a bit shaken. Please tell me what steps I can take to gain back some control over this situation?

https://archive.is/Q60Jk

An incredible (deranged Zionist) mind came up with this one. The whole thing is amazing and you should read it to learn how prosecuting the Adams administration will lead to literal pogroms in the streets of NYC, but here are some choice bits:

That’s because being the mayor of a city as big and wealthy and fractious as New York City, which is the second home of pretty much every nationality and subnational group of people on earth, requires that you have working connections to the city’s neighborhoods. The city’s neighborhoods are run by people who get stuff done, which means that being mayor requires at least the pretense of doing favors for the people who do favors for you ... The alternative to this crude political math is to elect billionaires like Michael Bloomberg who are rich enough to bribe the city’s clashing interest groups into submission with their own personal funds.

Prosecuting New York City mayors for their proximity to one form or another of local corruption is like prosecuting bartenders for their proximity to gin.

You can tell he was really proud of this bon mot

What is not politically sensitive, though, is to string up New York City’s Black mayor on charges of minor graft, while letting the big fish swim free. That’s not justice. It’s lawfare—meaning, the weaponization of the law to serve a political agenda.

And whose political agenda would that be? Well, the same people who see Eric Adams’ refusal to welcome unlimited numbers of migrants to New York at the cost of collapsing city services as a moral and political embarrassment, rather than as basic common sense. The same people who can’t stand the sight of a Black ex-cop who knows that the police protect the people far more often than they abuse their powers. The same people who think that preventing “Zionist Jews” from walking across campus or using the library at publicly funded universities like Columbia and NYU is a form of social justice work.

But wait a minute, you may say—what if the accusations are true? What if Hizzoner did receive campaign funds from people close to the Turkish government in return for approving the Turkish Consulate in Manhattan, and illicitly accepted other contributions from people close to foreign governments?

You’re right. I don’t know. But here’s what I do know: I know that Hunter Biden’s laptop

Adams also struggled to fight crime as his party increasingly deemed the very act of policing inherently racist, and he stood for New York’s Jews as his party increasingly snuggled up to their pogromists. The federal government, which has the power to uphold laws and deport foreign students who support terrorism, say, or withdraw funding for universities that coddle antisemitic mobs, many of which appear to have direct links to the foreign terrorist organizations they support, did nothing. Mayor Adams, on the other hand, sprung to action as soon as he could, breaking down the Tentifada encampment at Columbia and repeatedly advocating a zero-tolerance approach to the Hamasniks in our streets.

So because I don’t want to see the weapons of lawfare turned against the Jews; because I don’t want to live in a third-world swamp that prosecutes political enemies and rewards flunkies with impunity; and because I don’t want gangs targeting my wife in Central Park or on the subway or savages chanting “from the river to the sea” outside my children’s day school or my favorite kosher restaurant; because of all that and more, I stand with Mayor Eric L. Adams, a hero to Jews and New Yorkers. When he is reelected, thanks in part to the support of our community, and of all sane New Yorkers, I will proudly pass out squares of Turkish delight.

Last year, the original Pixar film “Elemental” looked doomed with the worst opening weekend in studio history, but turned into the box office comeback of the year. DreamWorks Animation’s latest film, “The Wild Robot,” hopes to chart a similar path to theatrical success.

Despite rave early reviews, projections for the Universal release remain very low, with most projecting a start in the $20 million range similar to the $25 million start last weekend for Paramount’s “Transformers One.”

As an adaptation of Peter Brown’s book series, “The Wild Robot” is not strictly speaking an original film. It’s in the vein of literary adaptations DreamWorks has picked up dating back to its first big CG-animated hit, “Shrek,” which was loosely based on a children’s book by William Steig.

The most recent DreamWorks book adaptation, “The Bad Guys,” opened to just under $24 million in 2022 and grossed $97 million domestic and $250 million worldwide, prompting Universal and DreamWorks to greenlight a sequel for next year.

With its beautiful animation style and moving tale of a robot stranded in a forest that adopts an orphaned gosling, “The Wild Robot” has the potential to win over audiences and show similar legs to “The Bad Guys.” If audiences embrace it as much as the critics, it could go even further, taking advantage of a lack of competing family titles in October and early November for a run similar to the $154 million domestic/$496 million global total of “Elemental.”

But the fact that “The Wild Robot” must take the long road to box office success compared to instant hit sequels to films like “Inside Out” and “Despicable Me” shows how much familiar characters and narratives have come to dominate the family market since the pandemic shutdown.

And sometimes even that is not enough, as Paramount is looking for “Transformers One” to leg out based on strong buzz from franchise fans, hoping that will win over moviegoers who weren’t originally sold on an origin story movie from the long-running series.

“The cost-driven selectivity that families bring into whether or not they see a movie is playing out in real time. Something like ‘Despicable Me’ which families already know and enjoy can get people in easily. In this case, familiarity breeds confidence that it’s worth the time, energy and money to go out to the theater,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Pixar’s “Coco,” the last original animated film to gross over $500 million worldwide, opened to $72 million over five days on Thanksgiving weekend in 2017. “Shrek” opened to $42 million before inflation adjustment back in 2001 while another children’s book adaptation, “How to Train Your Dragon,” opened to $43 million in 2010. Both cleared $200 million in domestic grosses.

“The Wild Robot” is earning critical acclaim as strong or perhaps stronger than any installment of the franchises spawned by those films, yet could very well have to settle for an opening below $30 million. The wild success of “Inside Out 2” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” shows that families have not abandoned theaters in the slightest, but such tracking for “Wild Robot” perhaps suggests that parents are less likely to try out something new unless they’re convinced they and their kids will enjoy it, making post-release word-of-mouth even more crucial.

“It used to be that theatrical and home video were the clear metrics with sometimes merch being taken into account, but now with streaming it just makes the formula so different,” said Dergarabedian. “Now it takes months and months to really see how much an animated film makes an impact on audiences, and it takes everyone in the room at a studio from different departments to sort it all out.”

Further complicating matters for both “The Wild Robot” and “Transformers One” is that Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has found considerable traction with families and young adults. According to data from exhibition sources, the audience share of moviegoers age 13-24 has increased by 16 points in the second and third weekend of the Tim Burton sequel’s run compared to its Gen X driven opening weekend.

This is part of the reason why “Beetlejuice 2” has been able to hold so well, approaching $250 million domestically after holding on to the No. 1 spot last weekend against “Transformers One.”

With three well-reviewed, family friendly yet tonally unique films now on offer and with the R-rated “Joker: Folie a Deux” being the top new release next weekend it will be curious to see how audience interest shakes out this weekend and whether “Transformers One” and “The Wild Robot” will be able to have lengthy and profitable theatrical runs without cannibalizing audience interest in each other.

Meanwhile, cinephiles will at long last get a chance to see Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating and critically polarizing “Megalopolis,” as Lionsgate brings it to theaters this weekend.

It has been a long road for this movie starring Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito as a brilliant architect and a corrupt mayor clashing over humanity’s future. The film was first conceived by Coppola in 1977 shortly after completing “Apocalypse Now,” but was shelved after a string of box office failures until Coppola decided to fund the film himself, selling his Sonoma wineries to fund the film’s $120 million budget.

Upon its premiere at Cannes, “Megalopolis” sharply divided critics, carrying a 52% Rotten Tomatoes score. Screenings for the film for Hollywood’s top studio execs led to the movie largely being passed on until Lionsgate reached a distribution-only deal in June, with Coppola covering the marketing costs.

How much Coppola, who has voiced his plans for other filmmaking projects, needs “Megalopolis” to make to keep bringing his cinematic visions to reality is unclear. But what is clear is that “Megalopolis” is likely to do worse than than “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1,” the first of a planned four-part series partially self-funded by writer-director Kevin Costner that had the release of “Chapter 2” indefinitely put on hold after it only made $29 million in the U.S. from an $11 million opening.

“Megalopolis” is tracking to open to roughly half that at $5-7 million, and given the mixed reception is unlikely to find an audience outside of Coppola’s devoted fans and the most fervent of cinema lovers.

For Lionsgate, this will be the fifth straight wide release for the studio with an opening weekend of below $10 million. But unlike some past recent misfires like “Borderlands,” Lionsgate holds no expenses beyond what it paid to acquire the distribution costs along with a percentage of the box office. With such a low bar, insiders tell TheWrap that Lionsgate should recoup its costs on “Megalopolis” within a week of theatrical play.

White House officials said Thursday they had coordinated a ceasefire plan that the US and France presented a day earlier with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believed Israel was fully on board with it. And they indicated surprise and disappointment that Israel had rejected it and that the Prime Minister’s Office was now saying Netanyahu had never indicated he would back it.

A French official also made clear to The Times of Israel that the ceasefire initiative had been coordinated with Israel.

While still in the air, however, Netanyahu’s office issued a firm denial that he had assented to the idea, calling it an “American-French proposal that the prime minister didn’t even respond to.”

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A spider sputter-coated in gold to prepare it as a specimen for scanning electron microscopy.

A conductive coating is needed to prevent charging of a specimen with an electron beam in conventional SEM mode (high vacuum, high voltage).

This item was on display at the Australian Museum in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

—Wikipedia

More and more young Germans support the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. It capitalizes on their pessimistic outlook and disappointment with other parties, experts say.

When the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was founded in 2013, it had the reputation of an old man's club: gray hair, suits, professors, businessmen from the baby boomer generation. It seemed to be composed mostly of men dissatisfied with the fiscal and foreign policies of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Eleven years later, hardly any of that political landscape remains. Merkel is no longer chancellor, and the AfD has changed dramatically. It has become more radical, but it has also become much younger. And this became increasingly clear during the European Parliament election and a trio of state elections that took place in eastern Germany in 2024.

The anti-immigration party campaigned heavily for the votes of young people. For example, in the eastern state of Thuringia, AfD state chairman Björn Höcke organized a motorcycle rally at the end of the election campaign. His supporters rattled through towns and villages on smoky and smelly two-wheelers made by Simson, a motorcycle manufactured in the former East Germany that is now popular among young people. The rally was accompanied by a professionally coordinated campaign on TikTok, Instagram and other social media, and drew the attention of most of the country's traditional media as well.

Loss of state-of-the-art vessel in May or June is setback to Chinese push for naval parity with US

China’s efforts to achieve maritime military parity with the US have suffered a serious blow after its newest state-of-the-art nuclear submarine sank in a dock, American officials have confirmed.

The incident happened last May or June at the Wuchang shipyard near Wuhan – the same city where the Covid-19 pandemic is believed to have originated – and came to light, thanks to satellite imagery, despite efforts by the country’s communist authorities to stage a cover-up.

A US defence official told Reuters that the Zhou-class vessel – first of a new kind of Chinese submarines and distinctive for its X-shaped stern that aids manoeuvrability – is believed to have been next to a pier when it sank.

It is not known if there were any casualties – or if the submarine had any nuclear fuel onboard at the time, although experts have deemed that likely, according to the Wall Street Journal, which initially broke the story. The submarine was eventually salvaged but it is believed that it will take many months before it can be put to sea.