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A Spanish court on Tuesday ruled that officials had unfairly allocated a public job to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s brother — a decision that has heightened tensions between the judiciary and the head of government.

“The general interest, and not the particular interest of the future recipients of public employment positions, should govern their creation,” the judges overseeing the trial in the Badajoz Provincial Court wrote in their ruling, describing it as an “unethical practice.”

The court’s decision marks a new low in the prime minister’s contentious relationship with the country’s judiciary. Sánchez has for years alleged that he and his family are victims of “ lawfare ” — questionable legal proceedings that aim to harass and discredit political opponents — and accused conservative judges of “involving themselves in politics [and] doing immense damage to the justice system.”

The charges stem from David Sánchez’s 2017 appointment as coordinator of music conservatories in Badajoz, Extremadura.

In 2024, Manos Limpias — a group with links to the far right that Spain’s Supreme Court was accused of filing frivolous lawsuits to undermine the government — lodged a complaint alleging the post had been created for the prime minister’s younger brother, and that civil servants colluded to rig the public competition in his favor.

Sánchez has consistently denied the charges, and throughout the trial his defense argued that it was impossible to claim the post had been awarded in a show of favoritism because it was allocated years before his older brother became prime minister, and at a moment when he was isolated and powerless .

The process unfolded at a time when Sánchez had been ousted as secretary general of Spain’s Socialist Party and was considered politically dead. And the man alleged to have ordered the competition’s rigging — former provincial President Miguel Ángel Gallardo — testified that he had a poor relationship with Pedro Sánchez and had publicly backed his rival for the party’s leadership, making it all the more unlikely that he would favor his brother.

Although Spain’s Public Prosecutor’s Office called for the charges to be dropped , the provincial court brought the case to trial. In their verdict, which the justices recognized as being based solely on “circumstantial evidence,” the prime minister’s brother was found guilty of administrative misconduct and barred from holding public office for nine years.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the conviction was crafted by those whose “sole purpose is to bring down a government that they were unable to defeat in elections,” and said this period in Spanish politics would be remembered as one in which “the seams of our most essential institutions were stretched to their limits.”

While insisting the government would comply with the ruling, Socialist Party Parliamentary Spokesperson Patxi López characterized the legal proceedings as a “ witch hunt ” and said the conviction “reaffirms the triumph of the far-right’s strategy.”

Pedro Sánchez has publicly acknowledged that the legal pressure on his family has worn him down, and he briefly considered stepping down in 2024 after his wife, Begoña Gómez, was named in a separate criminal complaint filed by Manos Limpias. She is on track to stand trial on corruption and influence peddling charges.

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Despite not being able to see our favorite duo on the big screen anymore, Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin and his little apprentice's beautiful father-son relationship lives on in a new Star Wars claymation.

The video, which was posted to Star Wars Kids on YouTube on July 15, shows little clay Mando and Grogu characters recreating some of the best moments travelling around the galaxy, including the duo taking a ride on the Razor Crest. Watch the clip below.

The claymation is, of course, inspired by The Mandalorian and Grogu , which recently finished its theatrical run. The movie debuted to mostly positive reviews, but only managed to earn just over $340 million worldwide. This is quite the dip, as the last Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, made over $1 billion at the box office in 2019. But with many Star Wars fans seemingly skipping The Mandalorian and Grogu in cinemas, they will soon be able to watch the new movie in the comfort of their own homes.

The newest Star Wars movie has finally locked down a digital release date and will be available to purchase on platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango from July 21. Fans will be able to add The Mandalorian and Grogu to their physical media collection from August 25, including the special SteelBook version.

But that's not the end of Mando and Grogu's story, as while we don't know if we will ever see The Mandalorian season 4 , there is another adventure releasing soon. On July 14, Star Wars announced a new special episode, titled LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian, which will premiere on Disney Plus on September 2. As per StarWars.com , the animated special "celebrates your favorite stories and characters from all three seasons of The Mandalorian series," including when Mando met baby Grogu.

For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows , as well as our roundup of how to watch the Star Wars movies in order .

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On August 13, 2027, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans will finally get another trip back into the sewers for the sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem , the critically-acclaimed 2023 animated film produced by Seth Rogen. But until then, IDW is keeping that iteration of the Turtles busy with various comic books. First there was the six-issue series Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . And coming this fall they’ll be releasing Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coastal Chaos, and Polygon has an exclusive look, including new images of the deep-cut villain from 1990s comic books.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Senate Unanimously Votes That Sam Bankman-Fried Should Never Get a Pardon

The Senate passed a resolution on Wednesday stating that Sam Bankman-Fried should “under no circumstances” receive executive clemency, a rebuke of the FTX founder’s request that President Donald Trump commute or pardon his sentence.

The measure, S. Res. 772, cleared by unanimous consent, a procedure that adopts a resolution when no senator objects. It expresses the sense of the Senate that Bankman-Fried should receive neither a pardon nor a commutation, and it affirms the chamber’s commitment to “the rule of law and integrity of the United States financial system.”

The resolution is nonbinding and does not limit the president’s constitutional power to grant clemency.

Senators Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, sponsored the measure. The two serve as the top Republican and top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee. They introduced the resolution on June 17, days after Bankman-Fried filed a formal pardon application with the Justice Department.

Lummis is the crypto industry’s most committed advocate in Congress and has spent years drafting the legislation the industry seeks. On this measure she has led the push to keep one of the industry’s most infamous figures in prison. “He had his day in court,” Lummis said when she and Gallego introduced the resolution. Gallego’s statement closed with four words: “Keep him locked up.”

The text of the resolution states that Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence “reflects the extraordinary scale and deliberateness of his crimes, his lack of remorse, and the catastrophic harm inflicted upon millions of victims.”

Bankman-Frieds’ attempts to get out of jail

Bankman-Fried, 34, filed his petition on June 8. His application seeks a “pardon after completion of sentence,” a form of clemency that would not erase his conviction but would restore civil rights such as voting and jury service and lift barriers to licensing, employment, and housing after he leaves prison.

He is not eligible for release until around 2044.

Trump said in a January interview that he had no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried. During his second term the president has granted clemency to other figures tied to crypto and to online markets, including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, along with other white-collar offenders.

A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on seven counts tied to the collapse of FTX, a case prosecutors described as one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history. American customers lost more than $8 billion. A judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison in 2024.

Bankman-Fried ran two companies at the same time. FTX was a crypto exchange, which holds customer money the way a broker does and is not supposed to spend it. Alameda Research was a trading firm he owned.

He moved billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to Alameda, which used the money for trades, venture investments, political donations, and Bahamian real estate. FTX’s software exempted Alameda from the rules that would have forced it to cover its losses like any other trader.

The arrangement came apart once Alameda’s balance sheet was found and reported that much of what the firm counted as assets was FTT, a token FTX had created and could issue at will. The collateral behind Alameda was, in effect, an asset its sister company had invented. The exchange Binance said within days that it would sell its FTT holdings, and the price of the token dropped.

Customers moved to withdraw their deposits, and FTX could not return the money because it was no longer there. The exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022.

CoinDesk was the first to report on FTX’s dubious balance sheets.

This post Senate Unanimously Votes That Sam Bankman-Fried Should Never Get a Pardon first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman .

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Carnie Wilson — best known as one-third of Wilson Phillips and daughter of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson — revisits some of the most defining moments of her public and private life. From a childhood spent in the chaos of rock-and-roll royalty, to her rise as one of the best-selling artists of the early 90s, to her very public weight-loss journey and the road to sobriety and motherhood that followed, Carnie shares what she sees when she looks back, and what it’s taken to finally feel like she belongs.

We created this video for The Me I Used to Be, a Big Think interview series created in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators . As a creative non-profit organization, they’re on a mission to help people challenge their perceptions and expand their thinking. Often, that growth can start with just a single unlikely question that makes you rethink your convictions and adjust your vantage point. Visit Perception Box to see more in this series.

This video The harmony Carnie Wilson spent her whole life trying to find is featured on Big Think .