Blue’s Lee Ryan has announced his wife Verity is pregnant with his SEVENTH babyCredit: Instagram/leeryanofficialThe All Rise hitmaker uploaded a sweet clip to social mediaCredit: Instagram/leeryanofficial
Lee’s new social media video showed him donning a black hat as he danced around with his family.
Verity, sporting her own nude headgear and a brightly-patterned dress, was seen proudly holding a sonogram scan of their unborn tot.
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The happy couple shared a kiss before the rest of their family joined them to celebrate.
In his caption, penned alongside a family day out, he wrote: “I am blessed by God for the family I have”.
He said at the time: “I met someone finally who loves and supports me in everything I do.
“Verity is a beautiful, strong and loving woman who I treasure.
“And I’m a lucky man to have such a wonderful mother for my child, and now wife, in her.
“I’ve never been more calm and grounded and I have Verity to thank for that.
“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life because of the wonderful family life I now have.”
Stunning Verity is a talented singer who appeared on X Factor in 2009 – and even turned her talent into a career when she worked as an Ariana lookalike and impersonator.
Hayley Williams is speaking out days after her ex-husband, Chad Gilbert, the founding guitarist of pop-punk band New Found Glory, died at 45 following a battle with cancer.
Williams posted the statement on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, writing that she hasn’t known what to say or “if it’s appropriate” but that she wants to address her former husband’s death because “life is made of the paths we cross and the reasons we cross them are infinite.”
“Chad is indeed a legend in the scene and my time connected to him taught me a lot,” she wrote. “He introduced me to people that continue to shape my life in beautiful ways, and to music and culture that has made life a lot richer.
“There isn’t much that hasn’t already been said about what he contributed to the musical world a lot of us grew up in. His influence and attitude guided the genre forward. His passion for fostering the community was inspiring and sticks with me.
“I will forever be grateful that from him I gained a deeper understanding and a reverence for the community and the culture of hardcore.”
Musician Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory and singer Hayley Williams of Paramore arrive at the 2010 People’s Choice Awards.
(Christopher Polk / Getty Images for PCA)
Williams concluded her statement by sending her love and sympathies to Gilbert’s family, friends and his New Found Glory bandmates Jordan Pundik, Cyrus Bolooki and Ian Grushka.
Gilbert died Sunday morning “peacefully in his sleep,” the band and his wife, musician Lisa Cimorelli, announced on social media. No cause of death was given, but the musician had been candid about his battle with cancer in recent years.
“He left this world surrounded by friends and family and took his final breaths with his wife and mother by his side, just as he wished,” the joint statement posted Sunday to Instagram read.
Williams and Gilbert were married in February 2016 after nearly a decade of dating but split the following year in July 2017, saying at the time that marriage wasn’t for the faint of heart.
Gilbert later married Cimorelli in October 2020, and the two welcomed a daughter, Lily, in 2021.
THE Wanted singer Nathan Sykes is set to become a dad for the first time!
Taking to Instagram, the musician revealed his wife Charlotte is pregnant with their first child with a sweet photobooth video.
The Wanted’s Nathan Sykes and his wife Charlotte are expecting their first childCredit: Instagram/nathansykesThe couple announced the news with a sweet photobooth videoCredit: Instagram/nathansykes
Nathan and Charlotte shared a video of themselves in a photobooth with an ultrasound strip to reveal the pregnancy news.
Charlotte captioned: “We’ve been keeping a little secret…Baby Sykes is officially on the way 🤍”.
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The video – which saw Nathan cradle his wife’s bump and the pair pose for various snaps – confirmed baby Sykes is due in April next year.
Numerous fans and friends took to the comment section to congratulate the pair.
The couple are set to welcome their little one in April 2027Credit: Instagram/nathansykesIt comes after they tied the knot last year in a stunning North Yorkshire ceremonyCredit: Instagram
Filming a broadcast television show can leave even the most seasoned actors feeling like they’ve lost sense of time. But by afternoon on a recent weekday, Josh Charles actually looks like he teleported to the past as he collapses into a seat inside his production trailer in upstate New York.
He’s in the throes of filming Season 2 of “Best Medicine,” the Fox dramedy he headlines that’s set in a small fishing village in Maine, and the reason he’s shed his character’s usual suit and tie for gaitered trousers and a navy coat with red facings eventually reveals itself: Port Wenn, the show’s fictional town, is putting on a Revolutionary War reenactment. And if you’re familiar with Martin Best, the curmudgeonly doctor with an almost permanently furrowed brow portrayed by Charles, the character’s willingness to don such a getup likely took some coaxing.
That’s the fun of it all for Charles.
He’s been a working actor since childhood — making his debut at 15 in John Waters’ cult classic “Hairspray,” followed soon after by his turn as Knox Overstreet in “Dead Poets Society” — and a fixture in TV and film ever since.
While best known for dramatic roles like high-powered lawyer Will Gardner in “The Good Wife,” Charles easily pivots to comedy — like the time he memorably played the triple-collared, snobby camp ringleader in “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.” Now, “Best Medicine” lets Charles leans into the push and pull of the comedy and drama within his tightly wound alter ego.
Josh Charles as Martin Best in Fox’s “Best Medicine.”
(Francisco Roman / Fox)
Created by Liz Tuccillo (“How to Be Single,” “Sex and the City”), the series follows a brilliant but cranky heart surgeon who, after developing a crippling blood phobia spurred by a traumatic medical case, abandons his thriving career in Boston to become a general practitioner in the town where he spent summers as a child. Martin Best is a doc whose bedside manner could use some TLC, but he came to town hoping he can still practice medicine — that is, if the townspeople would actually do as he says.
“I have been really wanting to do more comedy lately and looking — especially if I was going to call a place home for a particular period of time, like you do in a television show — for something that was a little more lighter air than I had been networking in of late,” says Charles, whose recent credits include dystopian drama “The Handmaid’s Tale” and spy thriller “The Veil.”
The series is based on the beloved British dramedy “Doc Martin,” which starred Martin Clunes as a doctor with a similar storyline, that aired between 2004 and 2022. Tuccillo says Charles brought an elegance and depth to the fish-out-of-water dynamic his character navigates in the quirky town.
“He never hits a false note,” she says in a separate video call. “I knew the material would be in great hands in that he would always elevate it just by his artistry and being. I knew he was going to be able to play the gruffness, but any time that you’re doing a show, there is a question mark on so many things. To be honest, we were like, ‘But is he going to be super funny? Is he going to want to do pratfalls? Is he going to be game for the comedy part of it?’ When we started working, it was clear he was game for all the shenanigans … he likes to laugh. So I try to devise things that I think will amuse him.”
A special advance preview of the Season 2 premiere aired Sunday, but the show will move into its regular time slot Tuesday. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation with Charles.
Josh Charles poses for photos on the “Best Medicine” set in upstate New York. He says he was drawn to the Fox dramedy because it was “a little more lighter air” than the other work he had done recently.
(Ebru Yildiz / For The Times)
“Best Medicine” hit Netflix after its first season aired. Building an audience outside the traditional linear viewing has become such a key component of television today. How do you feel about it?
One of my dad’s best friends told me, “I’m watching the show on Netflix!” He’s like, “I just can’t watch shows with commercials anymore” — as people are programmed now. That is the new shift. You go into these platforms for periods of time, build your audience in a different way and hopefully keep growing that audience. [Television] keeps evolving and growing in a way that I don’t fully understand, but I do know that it’s a different world right now. Netflix has a great reach, and it’s great that we’re on there and that people are discovering it. And apparently we did very well.
Season 2 opens with Martin on probation and under review by the medical board. What is Martin in for this season?
When it starts off, he’s really in it. Eden [Martin’s ex-girlfriend played by Eliza Coupe] is now back in the picture. She’s coming from Boston every weekend, and she’s rubbed a lot of people in town the wrong way. And the progress that Martin made, we see him maybe take a few steps back in the way that he interacts with people. He’s with her and I think there’s feelings there, but I think their relationship feels very — I don’t know, it’s interesting. It doesn’t have the fire. But she doesn’t make him feel bad about himself. She respects him, and I think those things are important. And he’s around in this town where nobody’s listening to him half the time. People are just always mad at him about something, and she’s not. She puts him a little bit on a pedestal, and I think he really needs that.
All that presents an obstacle for the show’s slow burn: Martin and Louisa (Abigail Spencer). There’s been some discourse about the art of the slow burn and how the pacing has changed in an era of short episode orders and unpredictable renewals. You have experience in this department with “The Good Wife.”
Liz and I have talked about it a little bit. You don’t want to muck bait it and drag it out for the sake of dragging it out. I think they’ve done a good job of putting the obstacles in a way that still feels organic and genuine and not yet a reach. In the British show, things accelerated so much faster. They only made eight [episodes] a year. We want to also have it feel like it’s plausible. It is really fun to have Eliza Coupe here. It’s fun to play scenes with her and [see] the different side that brought out in Martin. That is the challenge because I don’t think we’re as interested in doing it quite that fast [as the British show]. I have faith in them that we’ll land it in a good way.
Ellen Soraya Nikbakht as a peculiar patient and Josh Charles as Martin Best in the Season 2 premiere of “Best Medicine.”
(Danielle Mathias / Fox)
You’ve played in comedy and drama in your career. It’s fun to watch you straddle both sides with this character. How has it been finding the rhythm or tone with him?
A lot of the comedy I’ve done, I’ve done some stuff that’s more silly and kind of over the top. I love playing the fool. What’s really fun [here], to me, are the circumstances they put Martin in where things are blowing up in front of him and he’s just trying to deal. I’ve enjoyed doing a lot of the physical comedy on the show.
I [also] found it really interesting to have a character who doesn’t want to be around people, but he actually does. He just doesn’t really know how to do it, and he’s never really had any kind of practice at it in his life. And he’s gone through a lot of trauma in his life. He’s a really specific kind of workaholic. For him to grow up with what he did, and losing his sister really young in his life — I did research on that and what that does to people and how that can sort of frame your life. I imagine he went to private school, maybe a boarding school, then he goes on the track of going to college and medical school — we know how hard that is, the kind of hours they put in; then to be really successful at it, you put everything you have into your work. There’s this other side of his life that is completely empty. This town kind of just softens off the edges of him a little bit and helps him become a little more authentic version of who he was maybe meant to be. That gives me some place to build off of and to go with the character, other than it feeling kind of just very one-note.
Matthew Goode, left, as Finn Polmar and Josh Charles as Will Gardner in a scene from Season 5 of “The Good Wife.”
(CBS)
This series marks your return to broadcast television after leaving “The Good Wife” in its fifth season. You’ve done TV since then, of course. But a big reason you left broadcast was because of the grind of a 20-plus episode season. With “Best Medicine,” you’re the lead and the second season will have 14 episodes. Does that feel like the sweet spot?
If “The Good Wife” was “The Good Fight,” I would have done that until the wheels come off. I would have never wanted to leave that because I would have had a life. I could have been able to go do a play, travel with my family, see my kids. At the time of “The Good Wife,” I didn’t have kids, but we were about to get married and wanted to have children. I was only going to do 18 [episodes] at most with this show, if they wanted it. And then I asked them this year, “Well, we’re just at 14. What was the decision [there]?” And I’m happy about it. They also agree. This just feels like where the show wants to live creatively. You work really hard for four or five months, and then you get to go explore other projects and travel and live your life.
Your departure from “The Good Wife,” with your character Will Gardner dying, felt like an out–of–body viewing experience as it happened. The fact that it was kept under wraps —
I can’t believe we did it, honestly. There was one journalist who obviously had a source somewhere and did find out. Part of being able to keep that silent until the moment was an agreement that they would come to set and be there as long as it was [kept secret]. I remember like when the episode aired, I was in the editing bay with the editors in L.A. [for an episode I directed]. I’m seeing things come in and I was like, “Oh my God!” I thought it was going to get ruined for people on the West Coast. These days, you know how they make something, how much this cost, how they did this scene … we used to be surprised by things. To be able to truly shock people you know like in an Orson Welles-style “War of the Worlds” way. I felt like in our own sort of network TV way, this was the equivalent of that. We really got to narratively pack a punch. That season was one of the great treats of my career. I just felt the writing on that show that season was at another level.
AUSTIN, Texas — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was in custody Monday at an ICE detention center in Texas after he was released from a hospital with a bullet still lodged in his back, according to a spokesperson for the man’s attorney.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin, the state capital, on Sunday before he was shot during a traffic stop, said Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz, a spokesperson for immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.
Ruiz said Perez called his wife around 12:30 p.m. Sunday to tell her that he had been shot. She said Perez’s wife hasn’t spoken with him since then.
Perez was being detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles southwest of Austin, Ruiz told the Associated Press. She said Lincoln-Goldfinch spoke by phone with Perez, who told her that he was being interrogated while a bullet remained in his back. Perez also said he had no pain medication, according to Ruiz.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who “had a final order of removal.”
Perez is an asylum seeker and entered the United States through a parole program, and he has no criminal history, Ruiz said.
“Regardless of his status, the use of force was unwarranted,” Ruiz said. “As far as we understand, he was here legally.”
The shooting occurred amid a surge in ICE enforcement across the U.S. during President Trump’s second term. During the summer, it reported more than 50,000 monthly arrests in July and August — a first for the agency.
Immigration officers have come under intense scrutiny amid a series of shootings during the crackdown. At least four people have been fatally shot by federal officers during immigration enforcement operations this year.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters Sunday that the shooting occurred after a traffic stop. She said local police were not involved. Local officials said the man was shot once in the torso and had been hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
Perez’s wife and attorney were unable to get information on his condition from the hospital Sunday until hospital attorneys told them about 6 p.m. that he had been discharged 90 minutes earlier, Ruiz said.
She said ICE had not confirmed any information to Lincoln-Goldfinch, who used legal databases and other means to discover where he was being detained.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said Sunday he wants local police to have a role in investigating the shooting. Watson said it wouldn’t be appropriate for ICE to investigate on its own.
At the scene of the shooting, a dark blue Toyota Corolla was parked under an overpass with damage to its passenger-side door and what appeared to be bullet holes before it was towed away Sunday evening.
About 100 anti-ICE protesters gathered Sunday in the shooting’s aftermath.
Wilder and Bedayn write for the Associated Press. AP writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.
Sanjeev Bhaskar joins Nicola Walker’s The Split spin-off The Split Up but could he reunite with his former Unforgotten co-star?
Hayley Anderson Screen Time TV Reporter
18:15, 20 Sep 2026
Sanjeev Bhaskar plays Dhruv Kishan in BBC The Split Up. (Image: BBC)
Sanjeev Bhaskar is heading up BBC’s next big legal drama tonight with fans keen to know all there is about his personal life.
The Split Up debuts tonight, Sunday, September 20, at 9pm, on BBC One, delving into the Kishan family’s life as Manchester’s elite law firm.
Founder of Kishan Law is father-of-three Dhruv Kishan who is having doubts about leaving his business in his daughter’s hands following the death of her mother.
With The Split fans gearing up to tune into its BBC spin-off, here’s everything there is to know about leading man Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Inside The Split Up star Sanjeev Bhaskar’s life
Early life
Actor Sanjeev Bhaskar was born in Ealing in 1963 after his parents fled their home during the 1947 partition of India and moved to the UK.
He studied business with marketing at Hatfield Polytechnic and worked in marketing before getting into the entertainment industry in his early 30s.
Sanjeev got his breakthrough with the musical comedy double act Secret Asians with Nitin Sawhney which led to the BBC sketch show Goodness Gracious Me.
Sanjeev Bhaskar’s famous wife
The Split Up star Sanjeev Bhaskar is married to actress and comedian Dame Meera Syal who he met on Goodness Gracious Me which she co-created
They once again starred opposite each other in the sitcom The Kumars at No 42 where she played the grandmother of Sanjeev’s character, despite being younger than him.
The pair got married in 2005 and Sanjeev became the step-father to Meera’s daughter Milli from another relationship before welcoming son Shaan later that year.
In 2023, Meera received the BAFTA Fellowship award for her outstanding contributions to TV and film and was made a Dame last year for her services to drama, literature and charity.
In an interview with The Times, Sanjeev shared that he was “super proud” of his wife’s achievements.
Unforgotten season 7 update
Sanjeev will reprise his role as DI Sunny Khan in the seventh season of ITV ’s Unforgotten, now starring alongside Sinead Keenan as DCI Jess James.
Filming for the latest series began in January 2026 and recent reports have suggested that shooting is now complete, although an official return date hasn’t been confirmed.
Sanjeev is starring in BBC The Split Up, the spin-off of The Split which starred his former Unforgotten co-star Nicola Walker.
Speaking of his hopes that there could one day be an onscreen reunion to Radio Times, Sanjeev said: “Emotionally, it would be like some sort of cosmic miracle. I wouldn’t mind it at all.”
Sanjeev Bhaskar net worth
It has been widely reported that Sanjeev Bhaskar has a net worth of around £2 million.
This brings into consideration his almost 30-year career in the entertainment industry as an actor, writer and comedian.
He continues to be a major star in the ITV hit drama Unforgotten and has a star-studded comedy film on the way called The Entertainment System Is Down.
The feature is expected to star major names including Keanu Reeves, Samantha Morton, Kirsten Dunst, Tobias Menzies and Connor Swindells.
The Split Up debuts tonight, Sunday, September 20, at 9pm, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed an escalating federal investigation into his administration, including the donations that paid for his travel, saying it was retribution for his criticism of President Trump and his policies.
The latest legal development comes three months after Newsom accused the Justice Department of launching a baseless, politically motivated investigation of him and his wife, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The Democratic governor, who is considering a 2028 run for president, at the time said that federal agents had “knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees,” and were digging through years of records in a quest to find any kind of wrongdoing by him or his wife.
Newsom’s spokesperson Tara Gallegos called the latest developments part of a “baseless MAGA conspiracy theory.”
“There is just a sick man in the White House weaponizing the federal government to settle personal scores. It’s deeply upsetting to see innocent staff, friends, and family have their names dragged through the mud just because they’re associated with the Governor,” Gallegos said in a statement.
The subpoenas issued stated that the information sought was for an ongoing criminal inquiry and was signed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael D. Anderson, according to the Standard. The information requested included communications with Steve Kawa, who has served as head of the foundation and was Newsom’s chief of staff when he was mayor of San Francisco, and Rebecca Prowda, who works for the foundation and is the wife of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, the news report stated.
“We are not able to discuss any investigations at present, but the Protocol Foundation will continue its work, defraying costs from taxpayers while representing all Californians,” said Lily Becker, an attorney who provided a statement on behalf of the foundation.
The protocol foundation was created as a tax-exempt charity during Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration in 2004, and was intended to defray taxpayer costs for the governor’s travel.
When Schwarzenegger left office, his supporters turned the protocol foundation over to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s backers, who in turn handed it over to Newsom’s team. The foundation describes its mission in federal tax filings as “relieving the State of California of its obligations to fund certain expenditures of the Governor’s Office.”
Newsom appoints members to the foundation board, which determines what expenses to cover in the governor’s office.
The foundation covers the cost of Newsom’s international travel and certain domestic trips. His staff’s travel is also covered by the foundation. The foundation paid nearly $4,000 for his trip to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and paid $15,200 for the governor’s 2023 trip to China, where he visited five cities in seven days.
In 2020, the foundation paid $8,800 for Newsom to travel to Miami for Super Bowl LIV — where he said he was representing the state as the San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs.
Among the donors to the foundation are healthcare giants Centene and CVS Pharmacy. Others include the clean-energy nonprofit U.S. Energy Foundation, which donated $150,000 for the California delegation to attend COP30 in Belém, Brazil. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $300,000 in a 2023 behested payment earmarked for the California delegation traveling to China for the meetings on climate change. UC Berkeley gave $220,000 for the governor’s office’s trip to the Vatican in 2024.
Venezuela’s former first lady, Cilia Flores de Maduro, has asked a judge to release her from federal detention in the United States, citing a worsening heart condition.
In an application for pre-trial release on Wednesday, her legal team asked for the court to allow Flores to await trial under home confinement in Manhattan.
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It described her declining health since US military operation on January 3 that resulted in her abduction from Caracas and imprisonment in New York, as well as that of her husband, former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“Prior to the United States’ military invasion of Venezuela, Ms. Flores de Maduro was physically healthy and took no ongoing medication, other than a monthly injection to help control her mitral valve prolapse,” the legal filing said.
“Now she is prescribed four medications, maintains nitroglycerin by her side in the event of a potential heart attack, and grapples with the continued medical advice suggesting coronary exploration and surgery.”
Flores was a prominent figure in her husband’s government, serving as first lady since his inauguration in 2013.
Prior to Maduro’s first inauguration, she was also a leading member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the country’s dominant political movement, leading the National Assembly for more than four years.
But Maduro had long clashed with the administration of US President Donald Trump, who accused Venezuela of sending drug-traffickers into the US. Both Maduro and Flores have also faced allegations of participating in human rights abuses, including the violent suppression of political dissent.
After launching a one-day military operation to abduct Maduro and Flores, the Trump administration charged them both with drug- and weapons-related charges. They are currently awaiting trial in New York City.
But Flores’s health has been in doubt since her forced removal from Venezuela, according to her legal team.
After consulting outside medical experts, Flores’s lawyers said they believe she may have suffered a minor heart attack on July 29 while in US custody.
They also questioned whether she was receiving the appropriate medical care for her mitral valve prolapse, a condition affecting one of the heart’s valves.
Since her imprisonment, her lawyers said Flores has not received the monthly injection she needs to manage the condition.
Instead, she has reportedly been prescribed baby aspirin, a statin, diltiazem and nitroglycerin to use when she experiences chest pain.
Doctors have recommended that she undergo a cardiac procedure, which could result in additional heart operations. If she undergoes such treatment, Flores “will need adequate time to recover from any procedures in a setting conducive to restoring her health”, her lawyers said.
Thursday’s filing acknowledges that Flores does not “dispute that she has received excellent care” from medical professionals. But it argues that “a detention centre lacks the conditions needed for such a recovery”.
Her lawyers proposed moving Flores from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to a residence within the Manhattan federal court district, where she and Maduro are due to go on trial next June.
Under home detention, Flores would be subject to round-the-clock armed monitoring, with visits restricted to people approved by the court and federal prosecutors. Her home would also be monitored by video and her phone calls recorded, according to the filing.
Judge Alvin K Hellerstein has yet to rule on the application.
Flores, 69, and Maduro, 63, have been held in US custody since the January raid on their home in Caracas. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges of participating in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the US.
The estranged wife of former Chargers defensive end Marcellus Wiley has been granted a three-year restraining order against the former Los Angeles sports radio personality two months after she accused him of raping her and physically abusing her and their children.
The former Pro Bowl player has denied the allegations that Annemarie, a nurse anesthetist and former cast member of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” made in a declaration submitted July 6 to the Superior Court of Los Angeles County with her request for a restraining order against her husband of 12 years. She filed for divorce the same day.
Marcellus and Annemarie Wiley both testified in person during a hearing on Wednesday. Evidence presented by both sides included texts and WhatsApp messages, social media posts, court filings and media coverage of the couple.
“The Court finds that Petitioner has met the burden of proof by preponderance of the evidence,” Judge Esther P. Kim wrote in her ruling, which was issued the next day. “Petitioner’s request for a Domestic Violence the minor children are included as protected person in the Restraining Order After Hearing.”
Annemarie Wiley was granted full legal and physical custody of their three children, with a visitation plan detailed for her husband.
“I’m grateful for the court’s decision and welcome the opportunity for our family to finally begin healing after an incredibly difficult and trying time,” Marcellus Wiley said in a statement to The California Post on Thursday. “From the beginning, my fight has been about being present in my children’s lives, loving them, supporting them, and being their father every day.
“I’m thankful I get to return to that role. Annemarie deserves the space to protect her peace, our children deserve the love and presence of both parents, and our family deserves the opportunity to move forward without conflict defining us. My hope now is simple: healing, peace, and getting our family back to a place where love leads the way.”
On July 4, Marcellus Wiley was arrested in Florida after his wife told police he poked her in the face with his finger and threatened to kill her. He was released the next day on $1,000 bond and faced a possible charge of misdemeanor domestic battery. Last month, the state opted not to file charges because of a lack of sufficient evidence.
In the declaration she submitted with her restraining order request, Annemarie Wiley documented numerous alleged incidents that she said demonstrated “a continuing and escalating pattern of physical violence, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, financial control, and intimidation, much of which our children have witnessed.” She also mentioned four instances in which her husband allegedly raped her, once in 2012 and three times in January.
A temporary restraining order was granted on July 7. On the same day, Marcellus Wiley wrote on X that he has “videos, photographs, text messages, emails, and other evidence that directly contradicts those baseless claims and provides a factual record of our family and the events leading to this unfortunate divorce.”
Madrid, Spain – A wealthy American donor to Palestinian causes who faces extradition from Spain to the United States over alleged financial support of Hamas is a victim of “political persecution”, his wife and lawyers have told Al Jazeera.
James “Fergie” Chambers was arrested on the Spanish island of Ibiza in July while searching for a school for his son with his wife, actress Stella Schnabel.
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US authorities have linked Chambers to the transfer of $7.5m to Tunisia and allege that the funds were ultimately used to provide financial support to the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Director Julian Schnabel (centre), screenwriter Rula Jebreal (right) and actress Stella Schnabel pose during the ‘Miral’ red carpet event at the 67th Venice Film Festival, September 2, 2010 [Tony Gentile/Reuters]
The indictment remains sealed, so the specific allegations against Chambers – who denies wrongdoing – are not yet known.
Chambers, heir to one of the richest families in the US, has supported a handful of humanitarian projects in Gaza with funds totalling more than $1m, a member of his legal team said shortly after his arrest.
The extradition effort is believed to be the first of its kind involving a US citizen accused of providing support to Hamas.
Chambers, who describes himself as a Marxist-Leninist, has been held in a Madrid jail for six weeks as Spanish authorities consider the US extradition request.
Schnabel, who is also an activist, said she was driving through the Balearic island of Ibiza with her husband to search for a school for their five-year-old son, as they were moving from Ireland to Spain, when he was arrested.
“Suddenly, several unmarked cars cut us off. Police officers got out of the cars and told us to get out of the car. I got out my phone, and they told me not to phone,” she told Al Jazeera. “They handcuffed Fergie. We said we loved each other, and he said, ‘Tell the kids I love them’. And they bundled him into a car, and he was gone. That was July 10. Over six weeks ago.”
Schnabel said US President Donald Trump’s administration was targeting her husband for being one of the largest donors to humanitarian projects in Gaza. This included supplying bread, water and medical care.
“He should be at home with his family, continuing his humanitarian work. Instead, he is facing political persecution because he has stood with the Palestinian people,” she said. “This sets a terrifying precedent for repression of the wider movement for a free Palestine, including precedent for the Trump administration exporting its repression far beyond the US borders to target the people of Europe.”
The US Department of Justice declined to comment when contacted by Al Jazeera.
The US sent the indictment and documentation to Spain last week, in time to meet the 45-day deadline after Chambers’s arrest in July.
Al Jazeera understands that the indictment is still sealed and has not been revealed to his defence team.
Spanish authorities must now assess the US request. Among the issues they may consider is whether the extradition would amount to political persecution, a circumstance that could provide grounds for refusing it.
Chambers comes from the family behind Atlanta-based Cox Communications. In 2023, he reached an agreement with his relatives under which his stake in the family business was bought back for approximately $250m, following a break with the family.
Since then, he has been funding dozens of projects in 20 countries, Schnabel has said.
On the central allegation about funding Hamas, Schnabel said this was a “trumped-up charge” for which the US has not provided a “shred of evidence”.
“My understanding is that the US appears to rely on the fact that he transferred $7.5m of his own funds from the US to Tunisia. The reality is that this money was transferred to Tunisia because we were living there, and for philanthropic activities, including supporting Club Africain [a football team],” Schnabel said.
“The money sponsored the club, helped to pay its debts and overdue salaries, rebuild its training centre and develop football fields for young people.”
The Tunisian side secured the league title in May.
Lawyers for Chambers have also pointed to his outspoken views on Israel and its genocidal war on Gaza.
In the week after the October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, Chambers posted on X about Israel’s response: “Stop calling it ‘collective punishment’. There’s nothing to be ‘punished’ for. No faction of the Palestinian resistance, Hamas or other, has done anything wrong. It’s simply genocide. Like it has been.”
In the wake of the 41-year-old’s arrest, FBI agents raided the rented property in Ibiza where Chambers had been staying, The Guardian reported.
Chambers is represented by Spanish human-rights lawyer Baltasar Garzon, who has argued that the case against his client is politically motivated and connected to his humanitarian work in Palestine.
“We request our client’s provisional release and to file all necessary legal actions with the courts,” he told Al Jazeera.
In 1998, Garzon sprang to international attention when he sought the extradition from London of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He has also acted in human rights cases in Spain and Argentina.
“We hope that Spain will not grant extradition in what we consider to be a case of political persecution based on our client’s ideas and humanitarian aid to Palestine,” he added, referring to Chambers.
