分类： world

MIAMI — A years-long international legal case involving high-profile influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate took a sharp new turn Saturday, when U.S. law enforcement took the pair into custody at the request of British authorities who have leveled additional serious charges including rape, sex trafficking, and child indecent image offenses. The development adds another chapter to a sprawling saga that has stretched across three countries and drawn global attention to the pair’s polarizing online presence and repeated denials of wrongdoing.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed that the new charges stem from allegations made by four additional victims, with evidence compiled by investigators from Bedfordshire Police, based in southeastern England. The updated charges bring the total number of alleged victims in the UK case to seven. The offenses are alleged to have occurred between 2010 and 2015, expanding on a previous set of charges filed over claims from three earlier victims dating back to 2012–2015.

Breakdown of the new charges shows Andrew Tate, 39, faces seven additional counts of rape, three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, three counts of assault, and 19 offenses related to indecent images of children and extreme pornography. His younger brother Tristan, 38, faces one count of sexual assault, two counts of rape, and three counts of arranging or facilitating sex trafficking. Both brothers are dual U.S.-British citizens, and the CPS has formally requested their extradition from the U.S. to face trial in the UK. The pair remain in U.S. custody as extradition proceedings get underway.

The Tate brothers first rose to prominence as former professional kickboxers who built a massive global social media following centered on a controversial brand of content that promotes extreme wealth, male dominance, and open misogyny. Andrew Tate, the more prominent of the two, has amassed more than 10 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, but has been permanently banned from major platforms including YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram for repeated violations of hate speech policies. He also operates a paid online academy that markets itself to young men as a guide to building wealth and attracting romantic partners. Both brothers have been open about their vocal support of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

This is not the first time the pair have faced legal repercussions. In late 2022, they were arrested in Romania, where they had resided since 2016, alongside two local Romanian women. All four were accused of running a criminal network that lured women into coercive sexual exploitation. The brothers have consistently denied all allegations in the Romanian case, and procedural legal delays have kept the case from going to trial, though it remains open. A separate Romanian legal case against the brothers is also still active. Andrew Tate has repeatedly claimed that Romanian prosecutors hold no evidence against the pair and that a political conspiracy is in place to silence him.

Earlier this year in the UK, a High Court judge rejected a legal attempt by the Tate brothers to force authorities to release the names of their accusers, clearing a key procedural hurdle for the prosecution. Earlier this year in February 2025, after Romanian authorities lifted court-imposed travel restrictions that had kept the pair in the country for more than two years, the brothers were permitted to leave Romania. They flew to Florida on a private jet to enter the United States.

Their travel to the U.S. sparked minor political controversy after Romania’s foreign minister noted that a former U.S. official from the Trump administration had previously expressed interest in the brothers’ Romanian legal case. When asked whether his administration had pressured Romanian officials to release the Tate brothers, Trump stated he knew nothing about the case. The arrest in Miami marks the latest development in a legal saga that continues to unfold across transnational jurisdictions.

On a solemn Sunday in Paris, France gathered to honor the memory of more than 13,000 Jewish victims of the 1942 Vel d’Hiv roundup, one of the darkest chapters of collaboration between the wartime Vichy regime and Nazi Germany. The annual commemoration this year carries heightened urgency, as the nation confronts a sharp increase in antisemitic violence and harassment across the country following the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza conflict in October 2023.

The mass arrest operation, named for the Paris Winter Velodrome where thousands of detainees were crowded in inhumane conditions before deportation, unfolded over four days starting July 16, 1942. French authorities mobilized more than 4,500 police officers and requisitioned dozens of civilian buses to carry out the raid, acting on Nazi orders. Over 13,000 Jews were arrested, one-third of them children. Families were torn apart as officers seized children from their parents’ arms, and nearly all detainees were ultimately sent to Nazi death camps, where very few survived.

During World War II, after Nazi Germany invaded and occupied France in 1940, the collaborationist Vichy government administered French territory and actively aided the Nazi regime’s genocidal campaign against European Jewry. It would take five decades for the French state to formally take responsibility for its role in the Holocaust: in 1992, then-President Jacques Chirac issued a historic public apology for the French authorities’ central participation in the Vel d’Hiv roundup and other atrocities.

Today, France is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe. In the months after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, official data has recorded a major surge in antisemitic incidents, ranging from verbal threats and graffiti vandalism to physical assaults on Jewish people and sites. The troubling wave of hate cast a shadow over this year’s commemoration, after authorities confirmed a memorial plaque honoring a French family recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel was vandalized in Paris in the days leading up to the ceremony. The family had saved a 13-year-old Jewish child from capture during the 1942 roundup.
French Deputy Defense Minister Alice Rufo condemned the act of vandalism in stark terms, saying “To attack the Righteous is to desecrate the entire universe.” She reaffirmed the state’s commitment to restoring the plaque and preserving the legacy of those who resisted antisemitism and genocide, stressing that “In the face of antisemitism, in all its forms, the Republic will not yield an inch.”

Each year’s commemoration serves as both a tribute to the victims of the roundup and a reminder of the ongoing need to confront antisemitic hate in modern French society, keeping the memory of the Vel d’Hiv victims alive for future generations.

Overnight drone and missile strikes exchanged between Russia and Ukraine have sent tensions soaring to new heights in the nearly four-year full-scale invasion, with the Ukrainian capital Kyiv absorbing one of the largest ballistic missile assaults of the war to date. Ukrainian officials confirmed that the Russian bombardment left at least one civilian dead and at least 14 others wounded, after a wave of projectiles targeted multiple districts across Kyiv and its surrounding suburbs.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy labeled the attack as one of the most extensive ballistic missile campaigns against Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. In an official update shared via Telegram, Zelenskyy added context to the mounting pressure facing Ukraine, noting that over the preceding seven days, Russian forces had launched roughly 1,450 attack drones, more than 1,640 precision-guided bombs, and 99 missiles of different variants against Ukrainian targets across the country.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the overnight assault on Kyiv deployed a diverse arsenal of Russian weaponry, including Iskander short-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic Zircon anti-ship cruise missiles, and a total of 125 attack drones. Ukrainian air defense crews managed to intercept 18 of the 41 incoming ballistic missiles, as well as 108 of the drones launched in the wave. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko confirmed that both civilian residential buildings and commercial non-residential structures suffered damage in the strikes, with a local supermarket and a student dormitory among the impacted sites. Emergency response teams remained on scene through Sunday morning, working to extinguish large fires that broke out at two commercial warehouses damaged in the attack.

The Russian strikes on Kyiv came in direct retaliation for a coordinated Ukrainian drone assault on facilities owned by Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, widely compared to Amazon in the United States. The drone attacks destroyed two Wildberries warehouses, left eight people dead, and triggered massive uncontrolled fires at the sites. Seven of the fatalities and 25 injuries were reported at a warehouse in Tambov, a city located roughly 475 kilometers southeast of Moscow. One additional fatality and 37 injuries were recorded at a second warehouse in Elektrostal, a city just outside the Russian capital.

In a statement released Saturday, Zelenskyy defended Ukraine’s cross-border targeting operations, framing them as a direct response to repeated Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and population centers. The governor of Russia’s Stavropol Krai, a southwestern region of the country, also confirmed that a separate Ukrainian drone attack sparked a large fire at a local industrial park over the weekend, marking another in a growing string of strikes on Russian territory.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has significantly ramped up its long-range drone campaign against Russian critical energy infrastructure, a strategy that has reportedly caused widespread fuel shortages across parts of Russia. Earlier this month, Ukrainian officials claimed that their strikes had disabled approximately 43 percent of Russia’s total oil refining capacity, a figure that the BBC has not been able to independently verify. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly stated that Russian oil and gas facilities are legitimate military targets, arguing that Moscow depends heavily on revenue from fossil fuel exports to fund its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Founded in 2004, Wildberries has grown into Russia’s largest e-commerce platform; earlier this year, Forbes Russia valued the combined RWB group, which merges Wildberries and Russian advertising firm Russ, at roughly $12.6 billion.

KYIV, Ukraine — A deadly overnight assault involving Russian ballistic missiles has left one civilian dead and eight more wounded, according to local Ukrainian officials, marking the latest large-scale bombardment of the country’s capital amid ongoing regional conflict.

The assault began shortly after 1:30 a.m. local time, with the wave of strikes stretching across multiple hours. Deafening explosions resonated across every quarter of Kyiv, jolting residents awake and triggering widespread emergency responses. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service confirmed that the strikes ignited destructive blazes across five of the capital’s districts, leaving a trail of damage that spans civilian and infrastructure sites: residential apartment blocks, private homes, commercial office spaces, industrial facilities, a student dormitory, and dozens of civilian vehicles were all hit in the attack.

Emergency rescue teams worked through the night to extract trapped civilians from burning structures. In the Sviatoshynskyi district, crews pulled four people from a decimated private home that had caught fire. Over in the Shevchenkivskyi district, responders evacuated residents from a three-story residential building that was fully engulfed in flames. Firefighters also successfully contained a large blaze at a non-residential commercial structure in the area, where the body of the deceased victim was later recovered. Additional fire response teams were deployed to blazes across the Solomyanskyi, Desnianskyi and Dnipro districts, bringing the total number of affected administrative areas to five.

The attack is part of a recent uptick in large-scale Russian strikes targeting Kyiv, coming at a critical moment where Ukrainian defense forces face a crippling shortage of Patriot air defense missiles — the most capable interceptor system Ukraine currently has to shoot down incoming Russian ballistic missiles before they reach their targets. In a recent development that could shift Kyiv’s defensive capabilities, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced that his administration is prepared to issue manufacturing licenses that would allow Ukraine to produce its own Patriot interceptor missiles domestically. If implemented, the move could significantly strengthen Ukraine’s ability to fend off ongoing Russian ballistic missile attacks. To date, however, no concrete details have been released about the scope of the agreement or a clear timeline for rolling out the domestic production program, leaving the future of this defensive boost uncertain for Ukrainian forces.

In the early hours of Monday, the United States launched a fresh wave of airstrikes targeting Iran, marking nine straight nights of sustained bombardment, just one day after the Pentagon confirmed the death of a third American service member killed in recent regional attacks. The rapid escalation of hostilities comes as a previously brokered interim ceasefire deal, negotiated to lay the groundwork for a permanent end to conflict between the two nations, has completely collapsed, leaving the Middle East on the brink of a wider regional war that threatens to draw in neighboring Israel and key U.S. allies across the Gulf.

The latest American service member death was announced Saturday, after the service member was killed in Iraq while conducting a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone that had entered coalition-controlled territory. This fatality followed a deadly Iranian attack on U.S. troops stationed in Jordan that killed two service members; remains found during recovery operations for a missing service member from that strike were confirmed on Sunday, bringing the total number of U.S. service members killed since the outbreak of hostilities to 17.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations across the Middle East, confirmed in an official statement that Monday’s strikes continued a campaign focused on degrading Iranian military capabilities that Tehran has used to target commercial shipping and civilian mariners moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for global energy supplies. Shortly after the new strikes began, the British military reported a large ship caught fire off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, a route Washington has encouraged commercial vessels to use to avoid Iranian interception. The cause of the blaze remains unconfirmed as of Monday morning.

Tehran has responded to the ongoing U.S. bombardment with retaliatory strikes targeting U.S. allied states across the Middle East, drawing Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and other Gulf nations directly into the escalating conflict. Early Monday, Iran fired a barrage of missiles toward Jordanian territory, prompting Jordan’s military, which hosts major U.S. military bases and relies on American air defense support, to shoot down multiple incoming projectiles. Jordanian officials confirmed no casualties or damage from the strike, and later summoned Iran’s top diplomatic representative in Amman to issue a formal protest.

The missile strike toward Jordan prompted Israeli security officials to issue a rare warning, noting that falling debris from intercepted missiles could cross into Israeli territory, marking the first time Israeli civilians have faced air raid warnings in weeks. Two Israeli air defense interceptors were launched on the outskirts of Eilat, the Israeli coastal city adjacent to Jordan’s port of Aqaba, the target of the Iranian strike, to neutralize any rogue debris.

Across the Gulf, Bahrain activated its air defense systems early Monday and the U.S. embassy in Manama issued an emergency security warning alerting American personnel to potential Iranian targeting of unspecified sites in the capital. Kuwait also confirmed that one of its key power and water desalination plants, a critical piece of civilian infrastructure that supplies nearly 90% of the country’s drinking water, was attacked for the second time in 48 hours, causing significant fires but leaving the national power grid stable.

In a revelation that adds new urgency to global nuclear non-proliferation concerns, Iran’s state-run television reported Sunday that U.S. strikes hit the construction site of the planned Darkhovin nuclear power plant in southwestern Iran. Satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs PBC on July 9 shows the site remains in early stages of development, with only preliminary earth clearing completed. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, confirmed that during its most recent inspection, the site contained no nuclear material. Iran had not previously reported any strike on the facility to international observers.

Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, secretary-general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, has publicly condemned Iran for targeting critical civilian infrastructure, accusing Tehran of committing war crimes. Under international humanitarian law, civilian sites including power plants, water facilities and bridges are generally protected from deliberate attack, though they lose that protection if repurposed for military use. Even in those cases, attacking forces are required to minimize civilian harm and ensure strikes are proportionate to the military objective. The U.S. has similarly targeted Iranian bridges and electrical facilities as part of its nine-day bombing campaign, drawing criticism from humanitarian groups for the risk to Iranian civilians.

The fight for control over the Strait of Hormuz remains at the core of the ongoing conflict. Before the outbreak of war, roughly one-fifth of the world’s global oil supplies transited the narrow waterway each day, making any disruption to shipping a major threat to global energy markets. U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly threatened to target Iran’s critical civilian infrastructure including power stations and bridges to force Tehran to back off its claims to control the strait, and recent U.S. targeting indicates the administration is following through on that threat. Over the past week, the U.S. Navy has reimposed a full naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt all Iranian crude oil exports, with military officials reporting Saturday that six tankers have been redirected and one Iranian vessel disabled since the blockade began.

A maritime safety body overseen by the U.S. Navy issued an updated advisory Sunday warning that the threat to commercial mariners transiting the region remains severe, with deliberate hostile action against shipping considered highly likely. Shipping activity through the strait has fallen to a fraction of pre-war levels: just eight ships completed transits on Saturday, and only three did so on Friday, compared to a pre-war daily average of nearly 140. The near-standstill in traffic has already sent ripple effects through global energy markets, pushing fuel prices higher and hurting some of the world’s most vulnerable economies that rely on affordable energy imports.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a stern warning to the U.S. in a public statement Saturday, saying that continued attacks on the Islamic Republic will result in “unforgettable lessons” for Washington. An Iranian nuclear negotiator also confirmed that Tehran is suspending all its commitments under the previously agreed interim ceasefire deal, accusing the U.S. of being the first to violate the agreement. The 60-day window set out by the interim deal to negotiate a permanent end to hostilities and resolve outstanding disputes over Iran’s nuclear program is now past its halfway point, with no signs of renewed diplomatic progress.

Iranian authorities reported Sunday that at least 50 Iranian civilians and personnel have been killed in the latest round of U.S. airstrikes, with another 517 people wounded. Tehran has not yet released any official figures on overall material losses from the nearly two weeks of sustained exchange of fire.