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Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy star in “The Menu.”

Eric Zachanowich/20th Century Studios

• “The Menu” is a critically acclaimed horror comedy starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult. 
• The movie follows a young couple who attends a lavish dinner party that takes a deadly turn. 
• You can stream “The Menu” on HBO Max, or buy it to watch through services like Amazon and Vudu. 

Following a 45-day exclusive window in theaters, “The Menu” is now available to watch at home. The horror satire can be streamed on HBO Max, and is also available for purchase from Amazon, Google, and Vudu.

The movie follows Margot and Tyler, a young couple who gets invited to enjoy a special meal on a remote island by a mysterious celebrity chef. The menu is lavish, expensive, and full of surprises for the pair and their fellow diners, but little do they know that their luxurious meal is going to take a horrific turn. 

Check out the ‘The Menu’ trailer

“The Menu” is directed by Mark Mylod (“Succession”), and stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult as Margot and Tyler. The rest of the cast includes Ralph Fiennes, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Reed Birney, Judith Light, and John Leguizamo.

How to watch ‘The Menu’

You can watch “The Menu” at home with a subscription to HBO Max. The movie is also available to purchase from digital retailers like Amazon for $15.

HBO Max subscriptions cost $10 a month with ad-supported streaming, or $15 a month for ad-free streaming. Both plans grant access to the full HBO Max library including feature films, exclusive shows, and originals. The ad-free plan also adds support for downloads and 4K playback for select titles.

If you’d rather not sign up for HBO Max, however, don’t fret: “The Menu” is also available for digital purchase from Amazon, Google, and Vudu for $15. Once purchased, you can watch the movie as many times as you want in up to 4K resolution.

If you’re willing to wait a few weeks, though, a cheaper rental option is expected in the near future. An exact release date hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s likely you’ll be able to rent the movie around the time it hits Blu-ray on January 17.

Can you watch ‘The Menu’ for free?

You can watch “The Menu” for free by scoring a free trial to HBO Max through Amazon Prime Video. Though HBO doesn’t offer free trials directly, Prime members can get one week for free through Amazon’s HBO Max add-on. 

Just sign into your Amazon Prime account and add the seven-day HBO Max trial to your membership — then you’ll have access to the HBO Max library, including “The Menu,” for one week, free of charge. The trial is only available to new HBO members.

Is ‘The Menu’ streaming on Disney Plus?

“The Menu” is streaming on Disney Plus, but only in select regions outside of the US, including Canada, the UK, and Ireland. In the US, the film’s subscription streaming rights are currently held by HBO Max. 

Is ‘The Menu’ worth watching?

As of January 3, “The Menu” holds an “89% Certified Fresh” rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praise the film as a scathing, though somewhat shallow, commentary on consumerism and social inequality, full of enjoyable dark comedy.

With such positive ratings, “The Menu” is definitely worth watching, especially for fans of the cast, director, and genre. 

When is ‘The Menu’ coming to Blu-ray?

You can buy “The Menu” on Blu-ray starting January 17.  The Blu-ray will also feature a code to redeem a digital copy of the film. You can preorder “The Menu” on Blu-ray through retailers like Amazon for $20. 

The doctoral student accused in the November stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students will be transferred to Idaho to face murder charges there, after he agreed at a Tuesday court hearing in Pennsylvania not to fight extradition.

Bryan Kohberger, 28, was taken into custody last week in Monroe County in eastern Pennsylvania, where he was visiting family. Kohberger has been working toward a criminal justice PhD degree at Washington State University, located near the University of Idaho campus.

Jason LaBar, his public defender in Monroe County, told NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday that Kohberger believes he will be exonerated. He faces four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary.

Kohberger’s transfer to Idaho must occur within 10 days, according to a court order. Authorities in Pennsylvania and Idaho are discussing his transport, Pennsylvania State Police Major Christopher Paris said at a news conference, but the timing remained unclear.

The crime stunned the small college town of Moscow in northwestern Idaho, where the four victims – three women and one man – were found dead on the morning of Nov. 13 in the women’s house.

The victims – Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho – all suffered multiple stab wounds, according to authorities. Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend.

Two other female roommates in the house at the time of the killings were unharmed, apparently having slept through the attack.

Kernodle and Chapin had attended a party the night before, while best friends Mogen and Goncalves had visited a local bar and food truck, with all four returning to the house before 2 a.m. Authorities have said the slayings occurred between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Authorities have not publicly disclosed a motive but have said they are confident Kohberger is responsible for all four killings. A probable cause affidavit that lays out the basis for the charges will offer additional details, but it remains under seal until Kohberger is physically in Idaho.

Police served three search warrants when taking him into custody on Friday, Pennsylvania officials said. The warrants gave investigators the right to search his family’s house, search a white Elantra and take DNA samples and photographs of Kohberger.

Idaho authorities have previously said that a white Elantra was spotted near the murder scene.

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Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) on Tuesday said it was making “solid progress” in efforts to return operations to normal after cancelling nearly 16,000 flights in the week ended Dec. 29 due to bad weather and meltdown of its crew scheduling system.

The White House said Southwest “failed its customers” and added that the government would seek to fine the low-cost Texas-based airline if it does not appropriately reimburse customers for their losses.

Southwest said that during the New Year holiday weekend ending Sunday it operated 11,092 flights, or 99.1% of scheduled flights. The airline said it intends that “nearly all baggage delayed during the recent holiday travel week to be shipped or delivered by midweek.”

Southwest had canceled 59, or just 1% of its flights on Tuesday, according to FlightAware.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Transportation Department will hold Southwest accountable for to its commitments to compensate customers whose flights were disrupted since Dec. 24 and is closely monitoring the airline.

“Southwest Airlines failed its customers — point blank,” Jean-Pierre, adding the Transportation Department “will seek fines from Southwest if it doesn’t cover” required costs.

Jean-Pierre added that “our administration is going to continue to press for long-term solutions.”

The airline said it was reaching out by email to every ticketed customer “significantly impacted last week to offer a tailored gesture of goodwill and another heartfelt apology that redoubles our commitment to Customer.”

Southwest said Tuesday it sent an email apology from Chief Executive Bob Jordan and 25,000 Rapid Rewards points to customers whose flights were canceled or significantly delayed between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2. The 25,000 points are worth more than $300, according to the email. The ariline did not disclose how many customers are receiving the points.

A Southwest spokesperson said the airline has a large operation of volunteers assisting with processing refunds but did not offer any specifics the amounts paid to date. Southwest said in 2023 the “urgent work continues on planned improvements to processes and systems that will bolster the ability of Southwest to recover effectively in large-scale disruptions of our operational plans.”

Southwest has said it will honor “reasonable requests for reimbursement for meals, hotel accommodations, and alternate transportation” such as rental cars and tickets on other airlines.

Southwest was sued on Dec. 30 by a passenger who said it failed to provide refunds to passengers left stranded.

Republican Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives ran into trouble in a series of votes on Tuesday, as hardline conservatives rebelled against him, leaving the new Republican majority in turmoil.

In what could prove to be a brutal showdown between hardliners and the overwhelming majority of House Republicans, McCarthy twice fell short of the 218-vote majority needed to succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as speaker. It was the first time in a century that the House failed to elect a speaker on the first vote.

McCarthy also appeared to lack enough support as the voting went into a third round on Tuesday afternoon, with at least 20 Republicans voting for popular conservative Representative Jim Jordan to try to block McCarthy, even though Jordan did not put himself forward as a candidate.

McCarthy showed no sign of withdrawing from the contest after the second ballot, telling reporters: “We stay in it ’til we win … it will eventually change.”

A protracted speaker election could undermine House Republican hopes of moving forward quickly on priorities including investigations of President Joe Biden’s administration and family, as well as legislative priorities involving the economy, U.S. energy independence and border security.

A standoff would leave the House largely paralyzed and could force lawmakers to consider another candidate. In addition to Jordan, incoming Majority Leader Steve Scalise was seen as a possible candidate.

McCarthy had served as the House minority leader and sought to become speaker, a position second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency, only to draw strong opposition from his party’s right flank.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries outran McCarthy twice in Tuesday’s voting by 212 to 203 votes. Hardline conservative Representative Andy Biggs ran against McCarthy in the initial ballot and received 10 votes.

A majority of those voting, not a plurality, is needed to determine a speaker.

In the second vote, popular conservative Jordan sought to rally support for California Republican McCarthy, only to find himself put forward as a nominee by McCarthy opponent Matt Gaetz of Florida.

“We need to rally around him,” Jordan had said in an impassioned speech on the House floor. “I think Kevin McCarthy’s the right guy to lead us.”

Jordan, 58, is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

A former college wrestler who represents a congressional district in Ohio, Jordan was nominated on Tuesday as a rival to McCarthy but three times voted for him. Jordan is preparing to oversee the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the Justice Department and FBI under Biden.

It was a disconcerting start to the new majority for McCarthy and highlights the challenges Republicans could face over the next two years, heading into the 2024 presidential election. Their slim majority gives greater clout to a small group of hardliners, who want to focus on dealing defeat to Democrats and pushing various investigations.

Republicans won a narrow 222-212 majority in November’s midterm election, meaning that McCarthy – or any candidate for speaker – will need to unify a fractious caucus to win the gavel. Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate.

McCarthy’s hardline opponents are concerned that he is less deeply invested in the culture wars and partisan rivalries that have dominated the House – and even more so since Trump’s White House years.

Before the vote, McCarthy tried to persuade the holdouts during a closed-door party meeting, vowing to stay in the race until he gets the necessary votes, but many participants emerged from the gathering undaunted.

It was not clear whether McCarthy, who has the support of a wide majority of his caucus, would have the support to overcome the hard-line opposition and win the speakership. He once before, in 2015, tried for the speakership and failed amid conservative opposition.

McCarthy has spent his adult life in politics – as a congressional staffer, then state legislator before being elected to the House in 2006. As speaker, McCarthy would be well placed to frustrate Biden’s legislative ambitions.

But any Republican speaker will have the tough task of managing a House Republican caucus moving ever rightward, with uncompromising tendencies and – at least among some lawmakers – close allegiances to Trump.

The record number of voting rounds to elect a House speaker is 133 over a two-month period in the 1850s.

The Democrats picked Jeffries to serve as minority leader after Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker, announced that she would step down from her leadership role. She will remain in office as a representative.

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The teenager accused of attacking three policemen with a machete on New Year’s Eve near Times Square and charged with attempted murder was linked to Islamist extremism, a senior New York City Police Department official said on Tuesday.

“He knew what he was doing. He knew why he was doing it and he thought he would die in the attack,” Thomas Galati, the department’s chief of intelligence and counterterrorism, told ABC News in an interview on Tuesday. “He did yell out ‘Allahu Akbar.'” The Arabic expression means “God is Great.”

The FBI interviewed the suspect, Trevor Bickford, last month in Maine after his mother reported her concern that her son was possibly becoming radicalized, Galati said. Agents determined that Bickford wanted to fight in Afghanistan and placed him on a federal watch list to prevent him from traveling overseas.

“He is not representing, you know, the Islamic religion but rather, you know, a very, very small percentage of people that get radicalized,” Galati added.

On Monday, police said Bickford, 19, came from Wells, Maine, and said he had been charged with attempted murder and attempted assault.

New York City rang in the new year in typical style on Saturday with its famous ball drop celebration in Times Square.

The attack, which officials say was unprovoked, took place before midnight outside a secure area set up for New Year’s Eve celebrations.

All three officers who were attacked had been released from hospital by Monday. One of the officers shot the suspect, hitting him in the shoulder. The suspect was then taken into custody, police said.

Before the attack, Bickford wrote a farewell letter to his mother in a diary, according to the New York Times report quoting a law enforcement official.

“I fear greatly you will not repent to Allah and therefore I hold hope in my heart that a piece of you believes so that you may be taken out of the hellfire,” the Times quoted Bickford as writing.

The first major U.S. winter storm system of the year dumped a frosty mix of snow, freezing rain and sleet from the Northern Plains to the Upper Great Lakes region on Tuesday while posing a tornado and flood threat to a large swath of the South.

The National Weather Service (NWS) forecast 1 to 3 inches of snow (2-1/2 to 7-1/2 cm) would fall an hour, accompanied at times by thunder, and more than a foot would accumulate in parts of Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota on Tuesday.

Drifting and blowing snow from strong, gusty winds was expected to make road travel virtually impossible in some areas, while snow fog, mist and freezing rain created treacherous driving conditions in others, the NWS said.

Winter storm warnings, ice storm warnings and winter weather advisories were posted in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota as freezing rain swept north through the region, followed by bands of heavy snow, according to the NWS.

The wintry blast, expected to spread into New England by Wednesday, was part of a larger weather front bringing heavy showers and a chance of severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes to the lower Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast, Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians.

Tornado watches and severe thunderstorm warnings were in effect across much of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, along with flood watches posted along the southern fringe of that zone.

“It’s all part of the same system. The heavy snowfall is occurring on the west to northern side of the storm … and then the rainfall and severe weather is across the south,” NWS meteorologist Allison Santorelli said.

Nearly 200 flights through Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport were canceled on Tuesday, according to flight tracker FlightAware.

On the West Coast, northern California braced for another bout of heavy rain and flooding from an “atmospheric river” of dense moisture. It was expected to bring drenching rains and the possibility of renewed flooding to northern and central California, starting on Wednesday.

Heavy snow was expected to return to the Sierra Nevada mountains on Wednesday, along with coastal rain and higher-elevation snow in the Pacific Northwest.

Northern California was still recovering from a weekend Pacific storm that triggered floods, mudslides, power outages and road closures.

Santorelli said high winds accompanying the latest batch of impending downpours could uproot trees and knock down tree limbs, causing more blackouts.

As many as 21,000-plus homes and businesses in northern California were without electricity by early on Tuesday, data from poweroutage.us showed.

(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous text in paragraph 10)

Synology fixed several critical flaws in its routers, including flaws likely demonstrated at the Pwn2Own 2022 hacking contest.

Taiwanese NAS maker Synology published two new critical advisories in December. The first advisory is related to the most severe vulnerability addressed by the company, which is a critical out-of-bounds write issue, tracked as CVE-2022-43931 (CVSS3 Base Score10).

The vulnerability resides in the Remote Desktop Functionality of Synology VPN Plus Server before 1.4.3-0534 and 1.4.4-0635. A remote attacker can exploit the flaw to execute arbitrary commands via unspecified vectors.

“Out-of-bounds write vulnerability in Remote Desktop Functionality in Synology VPN Plus Server before 1.4.3-0534 and 1.4.4-0635 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via unspecified vectors.” reads the advisory published by the company.

The vulnerability was discovered by researchers at the Synology PSIRT.

The second advisory addressed multiple vulnerabilities impacting the Synology Router Manager (SRM). The Router Manager (SRM) is the operating system that powers every Synology Router. An attacker can trigger the flaws to execute arbitrary commands, cause a denial-of-service condition or read arbitrary files.

“Multiple vulnerabilities allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary command, conduct denial-of-service attacks or read arbitrary files via a susceptible version of Synology Router Manager (SRM).” reads the advisory.

The flaws impact SRM 1.3 and SRM 1.2, they were reported by:

• Orange Tsai from Devcore
• Gaurav Baruah working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative
• Computest working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative
• Lukas Kupczyk from CrowdStrike

It is likely that the exploits for the above flaws were demonstrated during the Pwn2Own Toronto 2022 and reported through Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative.

The researcher Gaurav Baruah earned $20,000 for demonstrating a command injection attack against the WAN interface of a Synology RT6600ax router.

Computest earned $5,000 for demonstrating a command injection root shell exploit targeting the LAN interface of a RT6600ax router.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Routers)

The post Synology fixes multiple critical vulnerabilities in its routers appeared first on Security Affairs.

BUCHAREST (JTA) — Watchdogs in Romania slammed an administrative unit of Bucharest’s city council for refusing to dismantle a bust honoring Mircea Vulcanescu, who served as a finance minister in the country’s pro-Nazi government during World War II.

On Wednesday, Sector 2 of the city council voted down a resolution that would have removed the monument from Saint Stefan park in the Romanian capital. The resolution, which attracted national attention, was initiated by a local councilor from the center-right National Liberal Party and failed to be adopted as a majority of councilors abstained.

Parliament member Antonio Andrusceac, of the far-right and nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians party, was present at the vote and accused the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania — a public institution which has long championed the removal of monuments honoring Nazi figures and collaborators — of “rewriting Romanian history and demolishing the cult of its heroes and martyrs.”

The Wiesel Institute sees the refusal to adopt the motion as a violation of a law adopted by the Romanian parliament in 2002 and revised in 2015, which made glorifying figures guilty of crimes against humanity illegal.

The preservation of Vulcanescu’s bust, the Wiesel Institute added in a statement on Wednesday, is also in contradiction with a national strategy to fight antisemitism adopted by Romania in 2021. 

“This public policy remains only on paper as long as war criminals, members of the Antonescu government, continue to be treated as civic models by authorities,” the Wiesel Institute said in the statement.

Maximilian Marco Katz, head of the Bucharest-based Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, also critiqued the council’s vote. 

“During WWII, Mircea Vulcanescu was part of Marshal Antonescu’s government that legislated and implemented antisemitic legislation and measures that resulted in the Romanian Holocaust,” he wrote in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Ion Antonescu, Romania’s prime minister in the early 1940s, sided with Adolf Hitler during the war. Between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Katz recalled that, in 1946, Vulcanescu was sentenced to 8 years in prison by post-war communist authorities, which found him guilty of collaborating with Nazi Germany and imprisoned him until his death in 1952. Vulcanescu had taken part in the adoption of legislation to overtax Jews and strip them of property.

Vulcanescu’s daughter Maria has sought her father’s rehabilitation, invoking the violation of due process that characterized post-war communist trials. But the Bucharest Court of Appeal dismissed her legal claim in 2019

As a result of that court decision, said Katz, Vulcanescu remains “a war criminal”, for which “all those who opposed or abstained” the motion to remove the monument “acted knowingly against” Romania’s 2002 law aimed at figures found guilty of war crimes.

Mircea Vulcanescu’s legacy as both an intellectual and a high ranking official has been at the center of repeated controversies since the fall of communism in 1989. Several historians and intellectuals, as well as nationalist groups and some activists advocating for the memory of the victims of communism, deny his role in the persecution of Jews and have signed a number of appeals in his defense. His defenders say he openly protested some of the Antonescu regime’s antisemitic measures and even tried to mitigate their effects.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Romanian city council votes down plan to remove bust of pro-Nazi government official appeared first on The Forward.

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) shares kicked off 2023 with a thud, plunging more than 12% on Tuesday on growing worries about weakening demand and logistical problems that have hampered deliveries for the world’s most valuable automaker.

Once worth more than $1 trillion, Tesla lost more than 65% in market value in a tumultuous 2022 that saw it increasingly challenged by other automakers and face production issues stemming from COVID lockdowns in China.

Tuesday’s slide knocked off nearly $50 billion in market value, roughly equal to the valuation of rival Ford Motor Co (F.N), which last year sold three times as many cars as Tesla.

The sell-off came after Tesla missed market expectations for fourth-quarter deliveries despite shipping a record number of vehicles.

“Tesla, as it has grown is now entering a phase of still solid but slower growth,” Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said. Being a major auto producer, it “is likely to feel more of an impact from an economic slowdown”, he added.

Several Wall Street analysts said they expected more pressure on the stock in the coming months from increasing competition and weaker global demand.

Global automakers have in the past few months battled a demand downturn in China, the world’s top auto market where the spread of COVID-19 has hit economic growth and consumer spending. Tesla is offering hefty discounts there and a subsidy for insurance costs.

At least four brokerages cut their price targets and earnings estimates on Tuesday, pointing to the deliveries miss and Tesla’s decision to offer more incentives to boost demand in China and the United States, the two largest global auto markets.

The company’s stock was the worst performer on the benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX) on Tuesday as it fell as low as $104.64 a share – the lowest since August 2020. More than 220 million shares exchanged hands during regular trading hours.

The electric-vehicle maker’s performance in 2022 was among the worst on the S&P 500 index.

“You have so many things working against the stock. One obviously is Musk’s involvement in Twitter,” said Dennis Dick, market structure analyst and trader at Triple D Trading.

Tesla’s market value has declined by about $370 billion since Chief Executive Elon Musk closed the deal to buy social media firm Twitter.

Some of that drop has come from his share sale to fund the $44 billion deal, while the stock also declined due to worries among investors that Musk has been distracted by the social media company.

At a value of about $341 billion, Tesla is still the world’s most valuable automaker, even though its production is a fraction of rivals such as Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T).

Tesla delivered 405,278 vehicles in the fourth quarter, short of analysts’ estimates of 431,117. For all of 2022, its deliveries rose by 40%, missing Musk’s 50% annual target.

The result “came at the cost of higher incentives, suggesting lower pricing and margin,” brokerage J.P.Morgan said in a note, lowering its price target by $25 to $125.

The median price target of 41 analysts on the stock was $250, more than double the current price, according to Refinitiv data. The lowest price is $85, from Roth Capital Partners.

The shortfall highlighted the logistics hurdles facing the company which is known for its end-of-quarter delivery rush. The gap between production and deliveries has widened to 34,000 vehicles as more cars got stuck in transit.

The automaker plans to run a reduced production schedule in January at its Shanghai plant, extending the lowered output it began in December into 2023, Reuters reported.