After Rudy Giulianifiled for bankruptcy last year, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the election workers to whom he was ordered to pay $148 million after being found liable for defamation, called bullshit. Specifically, they alleged in a court filing that the former New York City mayor had filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to avoid paying them what they were owed, saying he had “a history of engaging the judicial system in bad faith” and that his tactics were an obvious attempt to “hold off creditors” and “gut their legal rights.” And while Giuliani very likely does not have nearly $150 million, he very clearly has some money left in the bank. Though, based on spending habits that have recently come to light, that sum is dwindling every day.
TheNew York Timesreports that despite agreeing in bankruptcy court to stick to a comical monthly budget of $43,000—about the amount he draws from Social Security and retirement accounts—the mayor turned Trump attorney spent nearly $120,000 in January. That figure covered “60 transactions on Amazon, multiple entertainment subscriptions, various Apple services and products, Uber rides, and payment of some of his business partner’s personal credit card bill.” What’s his spending been like in the months since? We don’t know because, per the Times, “he has failed to submit required disclosures to the bankruptcy court.” And unsurprisingly, his creditors are pissed—not only because he’s apparently spending like a sailor on leave, but also because they suspect he’s lying about the value of his assets.
Per the Times:
His creditors also do not trust that he is being honest about the assets he does disclose. For example, Mr. Giuliani lists among his assets an undisclosed number of shares in Uber, the ride-share service. He declared that he has $30,000 worth of jewelry, but that includes three World Series rings from the New York Yankees that creditors estimate are worth about $15,000 each. He also failed to disclose a publishing contract for his upcoming book, The Biden Crime Family.
“As my mother would say, they don’t trust Giuliani as far as they could throw him,” Northwestern law professor Bruce A. Markell told the Times. (In a statement, a spokesman for Giuliani said: “These superfluous court filings are simply part of a larger effort to bully and intimidate the mayor through lawfare and a public smear campaign.”)
Meanwhile, the people he owes money to are also calling bullshit on his argument that he must keep living in a multimillion-dollar home, otherwise he might as well be living on the street.
These days, Mr. Giuliani brings in about $550,000 a year through disbursements from his dwindling retirement accounts and Social Security. His creditors want him to sell his properties in New York and Florida. But Mr. Giuliani recently told the bankruptcy court he would like to keep the Florida condo and live in it, suggesting that his creditors would not want him to be homeless. His creditors are skeptical.
“It seems hardly worth pointing out that there is a vast gulf of housing options available between residing in an approximately $3.5 million Palm Beach condominium and homelessness,” lawyers for the creditors wrote in a court filing.
Unfortunately for Giuliani, he has one very big, ongoing expense, which is paying for lawyers to defend him against various state-level criminal charges. Last month he was charged in Arizona for trying to overturn the 2020 election results there, after being similarly charged in Georgia last year. (He has denied all wrongdoing.) Two legal defense funds have been set up to help him—one is a PAC whose donors include the widow of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, per the Times, while the other, the Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund, does not disclose its donors. According to a court filing, Giuliani has thus far used at least $1.2 million from the funds to pay his attorneys.
Fact check: The gag order absolutely does not prohibit him from testifying
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The top lawyer at the Republican Party is resigning after he cited conflicts with his other work obligations and after Donald Trump grew angry about his criticism of the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, people familiar with the situation said Saturday night.
The lawyer, Charlie Spies, is a long-respected GOP election operative who was hired by Trump’s top lieutenants in March after the former president engineered a takeover of the Republican National Committee, which in recent years has been the party’s main operation in both fundraising and field operations.
She loved french fries, and pizza with “everything on it.” Ty’ah Settles covered the walls of her family’s apartment in Southeast Washington with colorful doodles. She was looking forward to starting day care in August.
On Friday night, D.C. police said, Ty’ah was riding in an SUV that went through a gun battle near her home. The cheerful, chatty 3-year-old, the daughter her mother had always wanted and called her “twin,” was killed by a stray bullet.
At least once in their lives, devout Buddhists in Laos strive to visit a very special temple inside a natural landmark, the Pak Ou Caves, directly on the mighty Mekong River, the lifeline of Southeast Asia.
According to estimates, there are as many as 6,000 Buddha statues of various sizes and materials like wood and bronze in two limestone caves, put there by pilgrims over the centuries.
Buddha is depicted with various hand gestures - called mudras - each of which has a specific meaning.
"It is estimated that there are around 4,000 sculptures in the lower cave and around 2,000 in the upper one," says tour guide Somjai Simoonthong, who regularly brings tourists from all over the world here.
The cave temples can only be reached by boat along the Mekong. The journey from the popular tourist destination of Luang Prabang - the former capital of the Southeast Asian country - involves a boat trip of about two hours.
Inside the caves, a Laotian who lives in the US state of Colorado sprinkles a group of Buddha statues with water - as a sign of purification and respect. "I've wanted to travel here for so long, it's very important to me as a Laotian," he says.
Most people in the country believe that their ancestors entered the caves for the first time in the 8th century. At that time, Buddhism was not yet widespread, so the Pak Ou Caves were initially used as a shrine for the river spirits.
After the royal family introduced Buddhism as the national religion in the 16th century, worshippers began making pilgrimages to the caves - especially around the New Year. Many left Buddha statues there, and the cave temple in its present form is the result of centuries of pilgrimages.
On a recent Sunday morning, the Barrio Centro neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona, was abuzz with activity. People from all walks of life were busy hauling dirt, planting saplings and building earthworks like berms and swales in the warm spring air.
They were part of a community planting event organized by Tucson Clean and Beautiful, a local nonprofit, as part of a larger, city-wide effort to fill street corners and vacant lots with groves of trees. The ultimate goal: to create more shade and increase heat resilience in the most vulnerable neighborhoods.
Youth employed by Tucson Million Trees work to place and irrigate young trees. Courtesy of Tucson Million Trees
However, the heat hits some areas harder than others. In neighborhoods in southern Tucson such as Barrio Centro, predominantly home to Latino and low-income communities, temperatures can be up toeight degrees warmer than the city’s average and a staggering 12 degrees hotter than affluent areas in the city’s north like the Catalina Foothills.
Such a difference is the legacy of decades of neglect that prevented the development of green spaces in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, argues Fatima Luna, Tucson’s chief resilience officer. “The south part of Tucson has been historically under-resourced, and there are not a lot of tree canopies there,” she says.
The extra heat endured by low-income neighborhoods often coincides with limited access to air conditioning, putting residents at risk of heat-related illnesses and even death. “This isn’t merely an environmental issue,” maintains Luna. “It’s a critical public health concern.”
Planting sessions take place from October through March. Courtesy of Tucson Clean and Beautiful
To address these disparities, in 2020 Tucson set a lofty goal: to plant one million trees by the decade’s end. The commitment came as the city joined the 1t.org Stakeholder Council, a coalition dedicated to global tree restoration efforts. The US chapter of this council — which includes organizations like REI, the National Forest Foundation and Amazon, and cities like Dallas and Detroit — has pledged to plant over one billion trees collectively.
To pinpoint the areas most in need, Tucson city officials rely on aninteractive dashboard powered byAmerican Forests’ Tree Equity Score methodology. The tool crunches data like tree canopy cover, climate, the percentage of people of color, poverty rates, unemployment rates and the population of seniors and children to produce a single measure ranging from zero to 100 for each of Tucson’s 466 neighborhoods.
“This score serves as a compass, highlighting areas needing urgent attention,” Nicole Gillett, Tucson’s urban forestry program manager, explains. “Lower scores signify a greater need for investment.”
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Accessible to the public, the dashboard facilitates transparency and citizen engagement, enabling residents totrack progress and report planting activities.
Planting sessions, organized in collaboration with local organizations such as Tucson Clean and Beautiful, occur on weekends throughout the planting season, which spans from October to March.During these events, volunteers are mentored by professional arborists who provide instructions on tree planting and maintenance.
Through a platform called Grow Tucson, residents also have the opportunity to actively co-design urban green spaces, ensuring they meet the needs of their community.
To date, about 100,000 trees have been planted. Courtesy of Tucson Clean and Beautiful
“Giving locals a personal stake is crucial,” notes Gillett. “It fosters purpose.”
The initiative prioritizes planting drought-resistant species indigenous to the region, such as blue palo verde, desert ironwood, desert willow and desert hackberry. “These species are particularly suited for urban environments because they grow at low elevations and depend entirely on rainwater for nourishment,” says Gillett.
In Tucson, where much of the surface is paved and impermeable, planting these trees can even play a role in revitalizing the city’s beleaguered streamsheds rivers, and creeks.
“Adding a rain basin with every tree is like giving the rain a direct pathway into the ground where it’s needed,” explains Gillett. “That way, it’s not just watering the trees but also replenishing groundwater and supporting streamflow.”
Some of these tree species can also contribute to addressing food insecurity in a city wherenearly 20 percent of residents live more than a mile from the nearest grocery store, believes Brandon Merchant, a longtime Tucson resident and farm and garden education coordinator for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.
Merchant leads a program called SOMBRA, the Spanish word for shade and an acronym for Sonoran Mesquite Barrio Restoration Alliance. The initiative aims to plant 20,000 velvet mesquite trees across the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods by 2030 to build shade and enhance food security.
Young native species being grown for future planting. Courtesy of Tucson Million Trees
Backed by the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management’s Urban and Community Forestry Program and the US Forest Service, SOMBRA began in 2021 after Merchant drew inspiration from a similar initiative in Portland, Oregon, focused on chestnuts.
“When we started thinking about it, we began noticing that mesquite trees are very much like chestnuts in that they can be grown in cities and can be used as a food supplement,” explains Merchant. “Indigenous communities living in this area have relied on it for thousands of years.”
The food bank organizes workshops about growing, pruning and harvesting techniques to educate community members on planting and caring for mesquite trees. “That’s a big part of it, giving people the skills to plant and tend to these trees for the long haul,” Merchant explains. The training also involves processing mesquite bean pods into flour ideal for baking bread, cookies and pancakes.
As part of the initiative, Merchant has teamed up with a local high school, a community farm and representatives from local tribes. Together, they have set up four cultivation sites where saplings are grown and nurtured until they are ready for transplantation. Only a few hundred saplings have been put into the ground thus far, but Merchant is optimistic about scaling up planting efforts this year.
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To date, Tucson’s initiative has led to the planting of approximately 100,000 new trees. Gillett says some of the trees planted first will start to have a small impact on shade and temperature, but it will take several more years to fully measure their impact.
The effort recently received a significant boost with a $5 million grant from the US Forest Service. This funding is part of a larger $1 billion commitment to urban forestry projects nationwide, established under the Biden administration’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act.
In addition to providing shade, mesquite trees can help alleviate food insecurity thanks to their bean pods. Courtesy of Tucson Million Trees
The grant funding will help the city run its recently opened Tree Resource Education and Ecology Center, a hub where seedlings are nurtured, and which can accommodate approximately 5,000 trees and plants. According to Gillett, this financial support will also bolster tree-planting capabilities and contribute to youth employment through specialized training initiatives.
As Tucson paves its path toward a cooler and more resilient future, municipalities across the country are paying attention. Gillet says she is frequently approached by leaders interested in setting up similar schemes in their own cities.
She believes Tucson’s approach can serve as a guiding model, as long as efforts are rooted in scientific principles, involve residents at every stage, and prioritize supporting vulnerable communities. “We’re not just planting trees,” says Gillett. “We’re planting equity.”
You want to order from a local restaurant, but you need to download a third-party delivery app, even though you plan to pick it up yourself. The prices and menu on the app are different to what you saw in the window. When you download a second app the prices are different again. You ring the restaurant directly and it says the number is no longer in service. You go to the restaurant and order in person. You mention that their website has the wrong number and the woman behind the counter says they have to contact the company who designed the site for changes, which will cost them, but most people just order through an app anyway.
You want to watch the trailer for an upcoming movie on YouTube but you first have to sit through an ad. Then you sit through a preview for the trailer itself. Then you watch the trailer, which is literally another ad. When it ends, it cues up a new trailer, with a new ad at the start of it.
The first page of Google results are links to pages that have scraped other pages for information from other pages that have been scraped for information. All the sources seem to link back to one another. There is no origin. The photos on the page look weird. The hands are disfigured. There is no image credit.
Your coworker sends you a PowerPoint pack to support a presentation you are giving to the executive committee, but you can’t make heads or tails of it. You call them over Zoom and they tell you they used ChatGPT to write it. You point out that it is near-unreadable, and they ask what specifically is wrong with it. You mention that, for starters, there are too many words on each slide. They tell you they’ll take care of it. They send you a new pack within the hour saying they asked ChatGPT to remove 30% of the text. It makes even less sense. You tell them you’ll just rewrite it yourself.
A billionaire got mad, bought your favourite social media site and ran it into the ground. A different billionaire got mad, bought the magazine site you liked to read on your lunchbreak and shut it down completely. A third billionaire did what they do best, bought the app you use for networking and sold it off for parts.
You want to watch a TV show from your youth so you check a streaming service, but it is not there, so you check a second streaming service but it is not there, so you check a third streaming service and it is not there. You search for it on Blu-ray but it doesn’t exist, so you search for it on DVD but it is out of print. You find a seller on eBay who has it, but the listing reads ambiguous as to whether it is the real thing or a burnt copy. You message the seller and they reply with an automated response thanking you for your interest.
You can’t read the recipe on your phone because it prioritises the ads on the page. You bring your laptop into the kitchen and whenever you scroll down, you have to close a pop-up. You turn AdBlock on and the page no longer loads, then AdBlock sends you an ad asking for money.
The Airbnb charges you a $150 cleaning fee, but insists the place needs to be left spotless. There will be a fee if the bedding hasn’t been stripped and the dishwasher hasn’t been emptied.
Your Uber driver is lost because his app hasn’t updated and keeps telling him to turn down streets that no longer exist. You still give him five stars.
Your mother sends you a link to a breaking story, but the article is behind a paywall, so you switch to the website where you do pay for news but there’s no mention of it.
You buy a microwave and receive ads for microwaves. You buy a mattress and receive ads for mattresses.
Strangers on social media assume you are American and get mad when you correct them.
Your Gmail is approaching storage capacity.
Your smart TV needs new firmware.
Your phone schedules an update.
Your friend has a short story published online but you need to pay for a subscription to the site in order to read it. You message them and ask if you could get a copy. They say ‘sure’ and send you a PDF. You read the story and like it. You are curious about one detail. You message them for more information and they recommend checking out the Wikipedia page. You read the Wikipedia entry and there is a lot of useful information supplied by a community. One of the sources cited is a non-fiction book. You go to your local library’s website and although they don’t have the exact book, they do have others by the same author. You place a hold on two of them, then go get your shoes on.
Gregory Bennett is a writer and filmmaker from Wellington whose accent comes from Invercargill. They hold a Masters in Creative Writing from the IIML and currently work for a disability support services provider in Melbourne, Australia.
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