logo
Andrew and Tristan Tate check in at police station in Romania, complying with judicial measures

Andrew and Tristan Tate check in at police station in Romania, complying with judicial measures

Boston Globe24-03-2025

Advertisement
'It doesn't matter what you're accused of, it matters what you are proven guilty to have done in a fair court of law,' Andrew Tate said on Monday. 'Accusations mean nothing. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat an accusation on the news. That is garbage.'
Early on Saturday, the Tate brothers returned to Romania on a private flight after spending weeks in the US, where they flew after a travel ban imposed on them was lifted last month. They remain under judicial control, which requires them to appear before judicial authorities in Romania when summoned.
Days after they arrived in Florida, on March 4, Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeier said his office had opened a criminal investigation into Andrew and Tristan Tate. He said in a social media post that he directed his office to work with law enforcement to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the brothers.
Andrew Tate on Monday accused Florida's governor of being 'hijacked by the media' after they arrived in his state. 'The media jumped on him and he didn't realize I was an American citizen,' he said. 'And now he understands he made a mistake ... there've been some conversations and everything has been settled.'
The lifting of their two-year travel ban came after a Bucharest court in December ruled that a case against the brothers could not go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors.
Advertisement
That development was a major victory for the Tate brothers and a blow to Romania's anti-organized crime agency DIICOT. The case, however, remained open.
Last August, DIICOT also launched a second case against the brothers, investigating allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering. The Tates have strongly denied those charges as well.
Andrew Tate, 38, a former professional kickboxer who has amassed more than 10 million followers on X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.
The Tate brothers' legal battles are not limited to Romania.
Four British women who accused Andrew Tate of sexual violence and physical abuse are suing him in the UK after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him.
In March last year, the Tate brothers appeared at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case after UK authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a case dating back to the period from 2012 to 2015.
The appeals court granted the UK request to extradite the Tates, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The UK seeks to send a message to Moscow as it outlines higher defense spending
The UK seeks to send a message to Moscow as it outlines higher defense spending

San Francisco Chronicle​

time33 minutes ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

The UK seeks to send a message to Moscow as it outlines higher defense spending

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. is about to see the biggest increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War as it seeks to send "a message to Moscow," the British defense secretary said Sunday. John Healey said the Labour government's current plans for defense spending will be enough to transform the country's military following decades of retrenchment, though he does not expect the number of soldiers — currently at a historic low — to rise until the early 2030s. He said plans for defense spending to hit 2.5% of national income by 2027, which amounts to an extra 13 billion pounds ($17 billion) or so a year, were 'on track' and that there was 'no doubt' it would hit 3% in the next parliament in the early 2030s. The government will on Monday respond to a strategic defense review, overseen by Healey and led by Lord George Robertson, a former NATO secretary general and defense secretary in a previous Labour government. It is expected to be the most consequential review since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and make a series of recommendations for the U.K. to deal with the new threat environment, both on the military front and in cyberspace. Like other NATO members, the U.K. has been compelled to take a closer look at its defense spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 'This is a message to Moscow,' Healey told the BBC. 'This is Britain standing behind, making our armed forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight, if required.' U.S. President Donald Trump has also piled pressure on NATO members to bolster their defense spending. And in recent months, European countries, led by the U.K. and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defense posture as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don't pull their weight. Healey also said Russia is 'attacking the U.K. daily' as part of some 90,000 cyber attacks from state-linked sources that were directed at the U.K,'s defense over the last two years. A cyber command to counter such threats is expected to be set up as part of the review. 'The tensions are greater but we prepare for war in order to secure the peace,' he said. 'If you're strong enough to defeat an enemy, you deter them from attacking in the first place.' While on a visit to a factory on Saturday where Storm Shadow missiles are assembled, Healey said the government would support the procurement of up to 7,000 U.K.-built long-range weapons and that new funding will see U.K. munitions spending hitting 6 billion pounds in the coming years. 'Six billion over the next five years in factories like this which allow us not just to produce the munitions that equip our forces for the future but to create the jobs in every part of the U.K.,' he said. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary for the main opposition Conservative Party, welcomed the government's pledge to increase defense spending but said he was 'skeptical' as to whether the Treasury would deliver. He called on the government to be more ambitious and raise spending to 3% of national income within this parliament, which can run until 2029.

Santa Cruz is revolting against authoritarianism — and I'm joining the rebellion
Santa Cruz is revolting against authoritarianism — and I'm joining the rebellion

San Francisco Chronicle​

timean hour ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

Santa Cruz is revolting against authoritarianism — and I'm joining the rebellion

I want to move Santa Cruz to join the rebellion. Wanna come along? The city of Santa Cruz has established a 2-cents-per-ounce tax on sodas — in defiance of a 2018 state law that prohibits local governments from imposing such levies. This Santa Cruz Rebellion might seem small. But in a dark moment of deepening authoritarianism, California — heck, the whole damn world — needs a new age of local defiance in which we frontally attack the extortionists who run American society these days. In Washington, President Donald Trump, the Sith Lord of blackmail, is nullifying laws and the Constitution in a relentless ransoming of countries and institutions unless they support his policies and fatten his wallet. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is threatening to strip cities of housing and homeless funds unless they adopt the local homelessness policies he wants.. But in Santa Cruz, on matters of soda, the people are clapping back and saying: We won't compromise on local democracy. This story begins back in 2018. After some California cities, including Santa Cruz, pioneered soda taxes to fight obesity, the beverage industry qualified a ballot initiative that was pure extortion. It said that if cities didn't drop their soda taxes, they would lose the power to raise other kinds of sales taxes. Facing that dire prospect, state leaders wrote a new law barring local taxes on groceries, including soft drinks, until 2031. One awful provision required the state to withhold local sales tax revenue from any city with its own soda tax — even if a court found that such a tax ' is a valid exercise of a city's authority.' 'This industry is aiming a nuclear weapon at government in California and saying, 'If you don't do what we want, we are going to pull the trigger and you are not going to be able to fund basic government services,'' state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, said in 2018. At first, Santa Cruz dropped its soda tax. But in 2023, a state appellate court threw out that awful provision withholding funds from cities with soda taxes. The court said that such a penalty could not be applied to cities with their own democratic local charters, or constitutions. Santa Cruz has a charter. So, under the court's decision, the city wouldn't lose funding if it imposed soda taxes. Last November, the city persuaded voters to approve a soda tax, which went into effect this spring. The beverage industry, calling the action illegal, could sue. But Santa Cruz is not backing down. 'It's about democracy and standing up to special interests,' said Santa Cruz City Council Member and Vice Mayor Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson about the law. 'It's about having the independence to generate revenue for our community.' 'The independence to generate revenue' might seem a dull phrase. But if Santa Cruz and other California cities were to protect their democratic right to collect taxes, it would be revolutionary. Since the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, which took away local governments' control over their property taxes, fiscal power in California has been increasingly centralized in state government. Most local governments, limited in their ability to raise their own revenues, have become beggars and lobbyists who must travel to Sacramento to ask for money. Santa Cruz's rebellion suggests that now might be the time for localities to stop begging and instead seize back power over taxation, whether state law allows it or not. Trump's misconduct also makes this case. With the man in the White House lawlessly withholding funding to California cities and counties, why should localities bow to laws that limit their ability to boost funding? After all, Trump's dismantling of the federal government means that more problems are going to fall on local governments. They need to find money where they can. Local defiance isn't always good, especially when it involves culture war issues. But when it comes to the fundamental capacities of local governments, our communities should assert themselves and stand up for democracy, now under attack worldwide. Localities should collaborate with each other to roll back anti-democratic structures that limit their sovereignty. This should include demanding new, modern constitutions for our state and our nation. New government systems should give local governments broad authority to decide citizenship, set taxation and make policy in any area that affects local people. That's already how government works in two rich and peaceful countries, Switzerland and Canada. Let's start this rebellion right away. See you in Santa Cruz. Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square, and is founder-editor-columnist at Democracy Local, a planetary publication.

Editorial: Harvard defends itself in a way all Americans should understand
Editorial: Harvard defends itself in a way all Americans should understand

Chicago Tribune

time2 hours ago

  • Chicago Tribune

Editorial: Harvard defends itself in a way all Americans should understand

Feeling like a medieval messenger, Abraham Verghese said, the distinguished physician and writer had 'slipped into the besieged community' of Harvard University Thursday to deliver the school's commencement address. Any other year, such a metaphor would have been absurd. Even a year ago at Harvard, the very notion of community was stretching the definition of the world, with students and faculty at odds over the school's response to the conflict in the Middle East. A matter of weeks ago, twin internal Harvard reports had found both a rise in 'Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli bias' and in 'Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian bias.' No wonder the university's President Alan Garber called the 2023-24 academic year 'disappointing and painful.' But nothing squelches internal fighting like a common enemy. This week, Harvard finally got its act together to defend itself, and by extension, all American universities, against extraordinary governmental attacks by articulating a defense resting on three granite pillars: freedom of speech, the importance of the rule of law and the value of America educating the world. Such, of course, are traditional Republican values as well as Democratic positions, arguably more so, given Democrats queasiness over at least the first two during the COVID era. Finally, a higher education sector that had fallen under the thrall of extremists and thus removed itself from the lives of most Americans has figured out that it can explain its importance if it does so in language core to the founding and essence of this republic. Such a defense was a long time coming but was balm for the ears once it arrived at what must surely have been just about the most politically charged graduation in Harvard's long history, given that contemporaneous news of a court putting a hold on the Trump administration's intent to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students became part of the ceremony. After all, what American argument could possibly be made for prohibiting international students, at least beyond the tiny percentage employed as some kind of spy? The benefits flow both ways: loyalty to America from such graduates has long been a major source of U.S. soft power and, of course, their full tuition, typically, boosts the local economy and often subsidizes low-income domestic students. And who beyond a xenophobe could possibly believe that one's education is not enhanced by a classmate from elsewhere in the world, a truth that applies to kindergarten just as much as at Harvard? Garber was greeted by a long, standing ovation at Harvard on Thursday, reflective of broad appreciation of his stand against the Trump administration. But Verghese, of Stanford University, a physician who spoke of compassion, healing and of life's brevity, was the chief messenger of sanity. 'The outrage you must feel, the outrage so many feel,' he said, 'also must surely lead us to a new appreciation. Appreciation for the rule of law and due process, which till now we took for granted — because this is America after all!' Verghese noted it was 'a reflex of so-called strong men to attack the places where truth and reason prevail.' An immigrant himself, he captured the fundamental optimism of the aspirational arriver on American shores: 'Who believes in America more than the immigrant who runs down the gangplank and kisses the ground?' He said the values of a university fighting against 'a cascade of draconian government measures' represent the values of the entire nation and he did so with optimism, this being a graduation and all. 'I know,' he said, 'that we will find our way back to an America whose attributes I admired from afar.' We know that too. And we also know that the students who graduated in recent weeks from many fine universities, including those matriculating next weekend at the University of Chicago, will be among those charged with that return. 'Though many would be loath to admit it,' Garber said Thursday at Harvard, 'absolute certainty and willful ignorance are two sides of the same coin, a coin with no value but costs beyond measure.' Here was a clever, even a passive-aggressive metaphor of a meme, along the same lines as Verghese saying that immigrants can and will 'keep America great.' 'The world,' Garber said, 'tempts us with the lure of what one might generously call comfortable thinking, a habit of mind that readily convinces us of the merits of our own assumptions, the veracity of our own arguments, and the soundness of our own opinions, positions, and perspectives — so committed to our beliefs that we seek information that confirms them as we discredit evidence that refutes them.' It was inspiring to hear such strong minds focus not on dogma or the grievances of identity politics but on the importance of critical thinking, of staying open to the world, of challenging one's own certainties, of being led not as sheep scared to go against the majority and determined to filter all facts through personal biases but as Americans open to being flat wrong. It is not only Harvard's best defense — or any university's best defense — against an authoritarian government. It is this country's best defense. The next step, though, is to better understand why those attacks on free academic speech and openness to the world are arriving from a legitimately elected administration with the backing of so many fellow Americans, including so many of those who value freedom above all else. That's the most important charge to the Class of 2025.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store