Donald Trump’s associate and former lawyer Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy just days after he was ordered to pay $148m (£116m) for defaming two election workers.
His spokesperson said the move will give him time to appeal against the punishment and ensure other creditors are treated fairly.
It’s not clear how the filing will impact his payments, as US bankruptcy law does not allow debts to be wiped off when they are the result of a “wilful and malicious injury” inflicted on someone else.
A lawyer for the two women Mr Giuliani defamed said bankruptcy would not rule out the debt, while a judge said on Wednesday he must begin paying immediately so he does not try to conceal assets.
“No person could have reasonably believed that… Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount,” his spokesperson, Ted Goodman, said.
In a filing in the US Bankruptcy Court in New York, Mr Giuliani said he had between $100m and $500m in liabilities and $1m to $10m in assets.
The former New York mayor owes the two women around $73m (£57m) for reputational damage and emotional harm, with another $75m (£59m) owed as punishment.
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Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to pay $148 million in defamation case.
The case stems from two women Mr Giuliani accused of fraud following Donald Trump’s presidential election loss in 2020.
The two former election workers, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, faced threats after Mr Giuliani falsely claimed they were engaged in voting fraud.
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He has repeated those claims following the 15 December verdict even though he has admitted in court that they were defamatory, which has prompted the two workers to file a second lawsuit.
He was once known as “America’s mayor” for his leadership following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001.
He was even named Time magazine’s Person of the Year following the attacks.
But his efforts to keep Mr Trump in office drew ridicule, particularly when he scheduled a press conference at a “Four Seasons” in Philadelphia that turned out to be a landscaping company, not a luxury hotel.
At another news conference, a dark substance, suspected to be hair dye, dripped down his face.
He called for “trial by combat” at a rally for Mr Trump’s supporters on 6 January 2021, shortly before thousands of them attacked the US Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress certifying the defeat.
The swimmer who was the first victim in the 1975 blockbuster Jaws has died.
Susan Backlinie died in her home in California at the age of 77, according to her agent. Her death was first reported by The Daily Jaws website.
The opening scene of Steven Spielberg‘s classic features Ms Backlinie running along the beach and before diving into the water and skinny dipping.
Her character Chrissie Watkins is then suddenly pulled under the water and she screams as she is violently attacked by an unseen great white shark.
Ms Backlinie had been a champion swimmer when cast in the film. She told The Palm Beach Post in 2015 that Spielberg told her: “When your scene is done, I want everyone under the seats with the popcorn and bubblegum.
“I think we did that,” she said.
In the documentary, Jaws: The Inside Story, Spielberg called Ms Backlinie’s sequence “one of the most dangerous” stunts he’s ever directed.
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“She was actually being tugged left and right by 10 men on one rope and 10 men on the other back to the shore, and that’s what caused her to move like that.”
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It marked the first time a genetically modified pig kidney was transplanted into a living patient. Surgeons said they believed the organ would last for at least two years.
Slayman’s family announced his death yesterday, thanking the doctors who carried out the world-first surgery for their “enormous efforts”.
They said the animal-to-human transplant – known as a xenotransplant – gave them “seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts”.
The transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said they did not have any indication he died as a result of the transplant.
Slayman, from Weymouth, Massachusetts, previously had a kidney transplant at MGH in 2018, but had to go back on dialysis last year after it showed signs of failure.
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As he needed frequent procedures as a result of dialysis complications, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.
His family said Slayman wanted to undergo the procedure to give hope to those on waiting lists for transplants, adding: “Rick accomplished that goal and his hope and optimism will endure forever.”
Pig kidneys had previously been transplanted into brain-dead donors, but only temporarily. Two men have also received hearts from pigs, with both dying within months of their prodecures.
More than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the US – most need a kidney, but thousands die waiting.
In the UK, the NHS said that in the year to March last year, there were 6,959 patients waiting for an organ transplant.
It said 439 patients died while on the active list waiting for it and a further 732 were removed from the transplant list, “mostly as a result of deteriorating health and ineligibility for transplant”.
Oprah Winfrey has admitted playing a role in perpetuating diet culture during her career and said a dieting item from a 1980s show was one of her “biggest regrets”.
The 70-year-old star – who has been ranked among the most influential women in the world – has been open about her struggles to maintain a healthy weight and attempts to lose weight.
In March she said “making fun of my weight was a national sport” for more than two decades.
In comments reported by NBC, Sky’s US partner, the talk show host told a livestream and live audience: “I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years.
“I’ve been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight loss shows and makeovers I have done and they have been a staple since I’ve been working in television.”
But she admitted an item on a 1988 edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show was one of her “biggest regrets” when she rolled a wagon of fat on to the stage to represent the weight she had recently lost thanks to a liquid diet and exercise.
She had starved herself for months, she said, admitting that it “sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet and set a standard for people watching that I, nor anybody else, could uphold. The very next day, I began to gain the weight back.
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“I own what I’ve done, and now I want to do better.”
Winfrey was speaking on Thursday at an event organised by WeightWatchers, whose board of directors she joined in 2015, before saying in February she was leaving.
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In 2016, she used an interview in the magazine O to reveal she had lost 12kg, sharing the cover with nine other woman to celebrate their “best body”.
In the issue, Winfrey said, “It was my idea to share the cover with other women who are on the same journey that I am. My own struggles with the scale are well known. I’ve never believed in hiding them.”
In December, she told People she had started taking a weight loss drug, saying she used it “as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing.
“The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for.”