Florida
Attorneys say Tate brothers should remain free in the U.S. as they fight extradition to U.K.
MIAMI (AP) — Attorneys for social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate argued Friday that the brothers’ high-profile, public lives and other factors constitute special circumstances for their release as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking.
The defense attorneys filed a motion for release in Miami federal court, where a judge will next week determine if the brothers should stay in jail or be released during what could be a monthslong extradition process.
The brothers have repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Prosecutors must file a response to the motion by Monday.
The detention hearing is likely to be the first time the Tates leave the Federal Detention Center in Miami since making a brief court appearance two days after their July 18 arrest. The Tates have become among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities with their promotion of wealth, male dominance and misogyny through their social media empire. The new allegations are the latest in the Tates’ long-running international legal saga spanning the U.S., Britain and Romania.
The defense motion acknowledges there is a presumption against bond in extradition proceedings but argues that release can be granted in special circumstances. It says the Tates’ high profile makes it nearly impossible for them to flee, and that they regularly post updates about their locations on social media.
Prosecutors call the brothers a flight risk but their attorneys said they have proved they are not, by complying with all pretrial restrictions in Romania, where they are accused of luring women for sexual exploitation.
The U.K. has until mid-September to provide evidence to the State Department to support extradition, meaning the brothers could spend months in FDC Miami before the proceedings are resolved, the motion says. No date has been set for an extradition hearing. They are being held in a special unit for their own protection.
“The Tates have limited contact with their families, no television, no radio, and no commissary access,” the motion says. “They sleep without pillows, on bunks shorter than they are tall.”
It says holding a detainee who hasn’t been convicted of a crime under such conditions violates due process.
The brothers have long claimed that their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.
The former professional kickboxers, who have dual U.S. and U.K. citizenship, have millions of social media followers and are vocal supporters of President Donald Trump. The White House has said the brothers shouldn’t expect any help from the president.
British prosecutors said the new charges relate to four new accusers and were brought after authorities received evidence from police in Bedfordshire, in southeastern England. The allegations, which span from 2010 to 2017, include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”
The brothers are already charged with rape, bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain relating to three other accusers in the U.K. between 2012 and 2015.
The brothers moved to Romania in 2016 and were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations, and the Romanian case hasn’t moved forward due to legal and procedural problems.
The Tates’ attorneys have said the Romanian court has granted a U.K. request for extradition that will take effect after Romanian proceedings conclude.
“What the United Kingdom seeks now is to shop for a second forum and a second judge in order to jump ahead of the Romanian proceedings and bypass the Romanian order that deferred surrender of the brothers,” the motion said. “The Court should decline and release the brothers on conditions.”
Andrew Tate, 39, became famous a decade ago when he was a contestant on the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother.” He was ejected from the show when a video appeared to show him assaulting a woman.
He has amassed over 10 million followers on X but has been banned from other platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, for violating hate speech guidelines. He has made widely condemned comments, such as saying women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for the attacks and sharing graphic descriptions of how he might attack women.
Tristan Tate, 38, has worked with his brother on multiple businesses, including the production of online webcam pornography.
Georgia
Woman says she was wrongly diagnosed with cancer and had hysterectomy due to labeling error
ATLANTA (AP) — An Atlanta-area woman alleges that she was wrongly diagnosed with cancer and underwent an unneeded hysterectomy because of a labeling error.
Cassandra Barksdale and her attorneys filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Kaiser Permanente alleging the mix-up led to the surgery and months of physical and emotional pain.
According to the lawsuit, another patient’s tissue sample was mistakenly labeled as belonging to Barksdale, who at age 43 then underwent a full hysterectomy on May 15, 2025, and was told she would get instructions about chemotherapy.
It’s unclear how the mix-up occurred. In September, Barksdale was informed that a DNA analysis found the tissue sample showing an aggressive form of endometrial uterine cancer belonged to a different patient and not to her, the lawsuit says.
“She came into Kaiser Permanente looking for answers, and she left with a diagnosis that did not belong to her. And every step that was taken after that was based off of misinformation,” her attorney Shannan Young said.
Barksdale went to Kaiser Permanente Southwood Medical Center in Jonesboro, Georgia, in early 2025 to seek treatment for heavy bleeding and fibroids, which are noncancerous growths in and around the uterus. She underwent a biopsy on March 10, 2025.
Barksdale said that after she got the biopsy results on March 17, 2025, she lived for months believing she had an aggressive type of cancer, sending her and her sons into a deep depression.
“I even started making funeral plans with them to let them know, you know, if I don’t make it out, this is what I want done,” Barksdale said.
Representatives for Kaiser Permanente wrote in a statement that, “Ms. Barksdale should not have experienced this.”
“We have highly trained staff and very thorough processes in place to prevent errors like this from taking place. After this occurred last year, we took immediate steps to ensure it could not happen again. We realize the impact of this incident and are committed to working with Ms. Barksdale and her counsel to resolve this in the most fair and accountable way we can.”
Because of privacy laws, information about the other patient — including what happened to her and whether cancer treatment was delayed — isn’t publicly available.
It is not clear just how often pathology samples are mislabeled or mixed-up during medical testing. An Ohio woman filed a similar lawsuit saying a 2019 error on a biopsy led to a misdiagnosis of lung cancer and unneeded surgery. Researchers studying prostate cancer discovered three cases of biopsy sample misidentification over two years, according to a 2011 research paper.
Labs have turned to a number of best practices to try and prevent errors, including barcode systems for specimen labeling and point-of-care testing.
The Georgia lawsuit asks for unspecified damages.
“There’s no amount of money that’s going to return back to her, her healthy organs, or erase the experiences and the pain that she’s had. But our justice system recognizes that when somebody’s negligence harms another person, accountability requires more than ‘I’m sorry,’” Young said.
North Carolina
DOJ says Duke Law School illegally considered race in admissions
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday accused Duke University’s law school of unlawfully considering race in admissions in the latest Trump administration action against higher education institutions.
In a findings letter to the school, the department said that while administrators paid lip service to being race-neutral in admissions, they used other factors as stand-ins for race, including personal essays and whether someone was a first-generation college student.
The Durham, North Carolina, school said in an emailed statement it was reviewing the letter and is committed to following the law “in a manner that is consistent with our academic mission.”
“Duke Law School doesn’t get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release.
Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused colleges of using other proxies to maintain racial diversity, which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.
The department recently found that the medical schools at Yale University and the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions. It announced in June that it was launching similar investigations into 15 other medical schools.
The Trump administration previously targeted undergraduate admissions at selective colleges, demanding they collect data to show they are complying with the Supreme Court ruling.
In its findings against Duke Law, the DOJ said Black or Hispanic applicants were much more likely to be admitted than white or Asian applicants with the same academic credentials. Further, it said, in 2024 and 2025, the median Law School Admissions Test scores of rejected white and Asian applicants exceeded the median scores of admitted Black applicants.
The department said it was seeking to reach a settlement with Duke Law.
Louisiana
Judge approves $106M settlement over Hard Rock Hotel collapse
A judge approved a $106 million settlement Thursday that ends a yearslong legal battle over the deadly 2019 collapse of a Hard Rock Hotel that was under construction in New Orleans.
The 18-story hotel project partially collapsed in October 2019, killing three people and damaging nearby property. A grand jury ultimately decided against indicting anyone in the deadly collapse, but lawsuits were filed, including one brought by the City of New Orleans in August 2020 naming the building owners, their partners and contractors.
The various lawsuits were consolidated into one case that includes a total of 490 plaintiffs, such as injured workers and businesses affected by the collapse, against 21 defendants, according to Mark Glago, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. The case has been pending for more than six years, Glago noted.
The combined $106 million settlement was approved by Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese on Thursday, according to Glago and Court records.
“This will be an honor to, you know, these claimants that have been through so much,” Glago said of the settlement. “We are very, very happy with this $106 million.”
The settlement funds will eventually be distributed by a special master.
Attorneys say Tate brothers should remain free in the U.S. as they fight extradition to U.K.
MIAMI (AP) — Attorneys for social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate argued Friday that the brothers’ high-profile, public lives and other factors constitute special circumstances for their release as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking.
The defense attorneys filed a motion for release in Miami federal court, where a judge will next week determine if the brothers should stay in jail or be released during what could be a monthslong extradition process.
The brothers have repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Prosecutors must file a response to the motion by Monday.
The detention hearing is likely to be the first time the Tates leave the Federal Detention Center in Miami since making a brief court appearance two days after their July 18 arrest. The Tates have become among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities with their promotion of wealth, male dominance and misogyny through their social media empire. The new allegations are the latest in the Tates’ long-running international legal saga spanning the U.S., Britain and Romania.
The defense motion acknowledges there is a presumption against bond in extradition proceedings but argues that release can be granted in special circumstances. It says the Tates’ high profile makes it nearly impossible for them to flee, and that they regularly post updates about their locations on social media.
Prosecutors call the brothers a flight risk but their attorneys said they have proved they are not, by complying with all pretrial restrictions in Romania, where they are accused of luring women for sexual exploitation.
The U.K. has until mid-September to provide evidence to the State Department to support extradition, meaning the brothers could spend months in FDC Miami before the proceedings are resolved, the motion says. No date has been set for an extradition hearing. They are being held in a special unit for their own protection.
“The Tates have limited contact with their families, no television, no radio, and no commissary access,” the motion says. “They sleep without pillows, on bunks shorter than they are tall.”
It says holding a detainee who hasn’t been convicted of a crime under such conditions violates due process.
The brothers have long claimed that their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.
The former professional kickboxers, who have dual U.S. and U.K. citizenship, have millions of social media followers and are vocal supporters of President Donald Trump. The White House has said the brothers shouldn’t expect any help from the president.
British prosecutors said the new charges relate to four new accusers and were brought after authorities received evidence from police in Bedfordshire, in southeastern England. The allegations, which span from 2010 to 2017, include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”
The brothers are already charged with rape, bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain relating to three other accusers in the U.K. between 2012 and 2015.
The brothers moved to Romania in 2016 and were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations, and the Romanian case hasn’t moved forward due to legal and procedural problems.
The Tates’ attorneys have said the Romanian court has granted a U.K. request for extradition that will take effect after Romanian proceedings conclude.
“What the United Kingdom seeks now is to shop for a second forum and a second judge in order to jump ahead of the Romanian proceedings and bypass the Romanian order that deferred surrender of the brothers,” the motion said. “The Court should decline and release the brothers on conditions.”
Andrew Tate, 39, became famous a decade ago when he was a contestant on the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother.” He was ejected from the show when a video appeared to show him assaulting a woman.
He has amassed over 10 million followers on X but has been banned from other platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, for violating hate speech guidelines. He has made widely condemned comments, such as saying women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for the attacks and sharing graphic descriptions of how he might attack women.
Tristan Tate, 38, has worked with his brother on multiple businesses, including the production of online webcam pornography.
Georgia
Woman says she was wrongly diagnosed with cancer and had hysterectomy due to labeling error
ATLANTA (AP) — An Atlanta-area woman alleges that she was wrongly diagnosed with cancer and underwent an unneeded hysterectomy because of a labeling error.
Cassandra Barksdale and her attorneys filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Kaiser Permanente alleging the mix-up led to the surgery and months of physical and emotional pain.
According to the lawsuit, another patient’s tissue sample was mistakenly labeled as belonging to Barksdale, who at age 43 then underwent a full hysterectomy on May 15, 2025, and was told she would get instructions about chemotherapy.
It’s unclear how the mix-up occurred. In September, Barksdale was informed that a DNA analysis found the tissue sample showing an aggressive form of endometrial uterine cancer belonged to a different patient and not to her, the lawsuit says.
“She came into Kaiser Permanente looking for answers, and she left with a diagnosis that did not belong to her. And every step that was taken after that was based off of misinformation,” her attorney Shannan Young said.
Barksdale went to Kaiser Permanente Southwood Medical Center in Jonesboro, Georgia, in early 2025 to seek treatment for heavy bleeding and fibroids, which are noncancerous growths in and around the uterus. She underwent a biopsy on March 10, 2025.
Barksdale said that after she got the biopsy results on March 17, 2025, she lived for months believing she had an aggressive type of cancer, sending her and her sons into a deep depression.
“I even started making funeral plans with them to let them know, you know, if I don’t make it out, this is what I want done,” Barksdale said.
Representatives for Kaiser Permanente wrote in a statement that, “Ms. Barksdale should not have experienced this.”
“We have highly trained staff and very thorough processes in place to prevent errors like this from taking place. After this occurred last year, we took immediate steps to ensure it could not happen again. We realize the impact of this incident and are committed to working with Ms. Barksdale and her counsel to resolve this in the most fair and accountable way we can.”
Because of privacy laws, information about the other patient — including what happened to her and whether cancer treatment was delayed — isn’t publicly available.
It is not clear just how often pathology samples are mislabeled or mixed-up during medical testing. An Ohio woman filed a similar lawsuit saying a 2019 error on a biopsy led to a misdiagnosis of lung cancer and unneeded surgery. Researchers studying prostate cancer discovered three cases of biopsy sample misidentification over two years, according to a 2011 research paper.
Labs have turned to a number of best practices to try and prevent errors, including barcode systems for specimen labeling and point-of-care testing.
The Georgia lawsuit asks for unspecified damages.
“There’s no amount of money that’s going to return back to her, her healthy organs, or erase the experiences and the pain that she’s had. But our justice system recognizes that when somebody’s negligence harms another person, accountability requires more than ‘I’m sorry,’” Young said.
North Carolina
DOJ says Duke Law School illegally considered race in admissions
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday accused Duke University’s law school of unlawfully considering race in admissions in the latest Trump administration action against higher education institutions.
In a findings letter to the school, the department said that while administrators paid lip service to being race-neutral in admissions, they used other factors as stand-ins for race, including personal essays and whether someone was a first-generation college student.
The Durham, North Carolina, school said in an emailed statement it was reviewing the letter and is committed to following the law “in a manner that is consistent with our academic mission.”
“Duke Law School doesn’t get a free pass to discriminate against white and Asian students simply because it thinks it has good intentions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release.
Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused colleges of using other proxies to maintain racial diversity, which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.
The department recently found that the medical schools at Yale University and the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions. It announced in June that it was launching similar investigations into 15 other medical schools.
The Trump administration previously targeted undergraduate admissions at selective colleges, demanding they collect data to show they are complying with the Supreme Court ruling.
In its findings against Duke Law, the DOJ said Black or Hispanic applicants were much more likely to be admitted than white or Asian applicants with the same academic credentials. Further, it said, in 2024 and 2025, the median Law School Admissions Test scores of rejected white and Asian applicants exceeded the median scores of admitted Black applicants.
The department said it was seeking to reach a settlement with Duke Law.
Louisiana
Judge approves $106M settlement over Hard Rock Hotel collapse
A judge approved a $106 million settlement Thursday that ends a yearslong legal battle over the deadly 2019 collapse of a Hard Rock Hotel that was under construction in New Orleans.
The 18-story hotel project partially collapsed in October 2019, killing three people and damaging nearby property. A grand jury ultimately decided against indicting anyone in the deadly collapse, but lawsuits were filed, including one brought by the City of New Orleans in August 2020 naming the building owners, their partners and contractors.
The various lawsuits were consolidated into one case that includes a total of 490 plaintiffs, such as injured workers and businesses affected by the collapse, against 21 defendants, according to Mark Glago, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. The case has been pending for more than six years, Glago noted.
The combined $106 million settlement was approved by Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese on Thursday, according to Glago and Court records.
“This will be an honor to, you know, these claimants that have been through so much,” Glago said of the settlement. “We are very, very happy with this $106 million.”
The settlement funds will eventually be distributed by a special master.
