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Jeffrey Epstein had two key aides – why do they still control his money and secrets?

​ Jeffrey Epstein had two key aides – why do they still control his money and secrets?. 9 hours ago. Chi Chi Izundu,. Olivia Daviesand. Will Dahlgreen,BBC News Investigations. BBC. When the FBI raided Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion in July 2019, on the day he was arrested for child sex trafficking, agents forced open a large safe to find diamonds, bundles of cash, passports, binders of CDs and hard drives.. But an issue with the warrant meant they could not leave with the items. And when they returned with a new one, the safe had been emptied while they were gone – according to FBI documents.. Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant and bookkeeper since 2005, had told the mansion’s staff to pack two suitcases with the contents of the safe and deliver them to his home, agents wrote.. After the FBI spoke to Kahn’s then lawyer, Kahn agreed to hand over the suitcases untouched, but he did not want agents coming to his house and declined to say who had told him to remove the items.. However, a source close to the investigation into Epstein told us that he was not aware of Kahn ever being interviewed or investigated in relation to the paedophile financier’s criminal investigation.. Kahn’s current lawyer told BBC News that his client had fully co-operated with the FBI’s requests.. US Department of Justice. Kahn, and Epstein’s long-serving lawyer Darren Indyke, are the sole executors of Epstein’s estate, controlling all his wealth and possessions.. Although hardly household names, the pair now hold control over compensation owed to survivors and the secrets contained in the documents still held by the Epstein estate – which, upon request, have been released to the House Oversight Committee.. As part of its investigation into Epstein’s network, the congressional committee has subpoenaed – summoned – the pair to testify. Kahn is appearing on Wednesday, while Indyke is due to testify on Thursday 19 March.. We have spoken to people associated with investigations linked to disgraced Epstein, looked through papers from multiple court cases, and analysed the most recent material released in the Epstein files by the US Department of Justice – to try to uncover more about the role the two men are alleged to have played in Epstein’s life and continue to play after his death.. Epstein appointed Indyke and Kahn as co-executors in August 2019, just two days before he died in jail awaiting trial for sex-trafficking minors. He revised his will to transfer all his wealth into a trust named after the year of his birth, which the lawyer and accountant would administer.. In their role as executors, Indyke and Kahn have agreed compensation packages paid to survivors and included conditions that prevented survivors who accepted funds from taking further legal action against them personally. Other claims are still outstanding.. As beneficiaries of the trust, the men could also be paid tens of millions of dollars each from whatever remains when the claims are settled.. The value  

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BBC News World

At least six dead in Switzerland bus fire

​ At least six dead in Switzerland bus fire. 3 hours ago. Robert Greenall. Fribourg Police/EPA/Shutterstock. At least six people have been killed and others injured after a bus caught fire in a town in western Switzerland, according to police.. The incident took place at around 18:25 local time (19:25 GMT) on Tuesday in the centre of Kerzers – known in French as Chiètres – in Fribourg canton, about 20km (12 miles) from the capital, Bern.. At least three people were taken to hospital, police said, and there were reports that a rescuer was also hurt.. The cause of the fire is not yet known but an investigation is under way into whether it was deliberately started.. There have been reports that a person doused themselves in gasoline but the authorities said they could not immediately confirm this.. Video posted by local media shows a bus in flames and a local resident described seeing a thick column of smoke.. The bus involved had reportedly travelled from the Düdingen municipality, 17km south of Kerzers.. In a post on X, Swiss President Guy Parmelin said that it “shocks and saddens me that people have lost their lives in a serious fire in Switzerland”.. Forty-one people were killed in a deadly fire that broke out in a Swiss ski resort on New Year’s Eve.. Switzerland  

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BBC News World

Arrests, accusations and arguments – the Mugabe family after losing power

​ Arrests, accusations and arguments – the Mugabe family after losing power. 3 hours ago. Khanyisile NgcoboJohannesburg. Reuters. The arrest in South Africa of the youngest son of Zimbabwe’s former President, Robert Mugabe, has brought renewed attention to the former first family and their controversies over the years.. Bellarmine Mugabe, who is due in court on Wednesday for a bail hearing, is accused of attempted murder, among other charges, after a 23-year-old man was shot and injured at a property in an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg.. He has not commented on the charges.. His father led Zimbabwe for 37 years before being forced out of power at the age of 93 in 2017. He died two years later.. The long-serving president and his second wife Grace had three children together:. Bona Mugabe – now 37. Robert Mugabe Jr – now 33. Bellarmine Mugabe – now 28.. Grace also had a son from an earlier marriage:. Russell Goreraza – now in his early 40s.. Managing editor of Zimbabwean privately owned NewsHawks website, Dumisani Muleya, told the BBC that the Mugabe family had “lived a life of privilege” and that the children “grew up in that environment where they were protected from the broader realities of the Zimbabwean political and socio-economic situation”.. The family had amassed a vast personal fortune, including $10m (£7.5m) in cash, four houses, 10 cars, a farm and an orchard among other assets.. These details emerged three months after Robert Mugabe’s death in a legal letter submitted to the high court in Zimbabwe by his daughter Bona. At the time, a lawyer for the family, Terrence Hussein, told the BBC that none of the properties were under the former leader’s name.. In 2013, Grace denied that her husband was accumulating wealth while in office, saying her husband did not earn as much as people thought as he was a civil servant.. “The allowance I get is just a pittance. I’m a business-minded person [and] I support my husband [by] running our private businesses,” she said.. Here is a run-down of what has happened to the family members:. Bellarmine Mugabe. Like his siblings, he grew up in the public eye and was subjected to scrutiny from a young age.. But as a teenager it was Bellarmine’s approach to studying that appeared to have been a concern for his parents.. In a wide-ranging interview in 2013 on South African television, they described his playfulness and lack of focus on academics.. Grace said she wanted him to “change his ways” and “concentrate on his studies”.. “He should be more serious than he is at the moment,” his father added.. Bellarmine sheepishly admitted to spending more time on video games than his schoolwork.. Gallo Images/Getty Images. Bellarmine and his older brother Robert Jr have made headlines over the years for their flashy lifestyles in the face of rising poverty in Zimbabwe.. In 2017, a few weeks before the coup in which his father was ousted, he posted a picture of a $60,000 watch he was wearing on Instagram.. A few months  

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BBC News World

Australian designer Katie Perry wins trademark appeal vs Katy Perry

​ Katy Perry loses trademark case against Australian designer Katie Perry. 1 hour ago. Lana LamSydney. Getty Images. Pop star Katy Perry has lost, for the second time, her years-long trademark case against an Australian fashion brand called Katie Perry.. In a High Court ruling on Wednesday, judges found that designer Katie Taylor had not hurt the US singer’s reputation or caused confusion with her clothing brand, which started in 2007.. Taylor, who changed her surname in 2015, successfully sued Perry two years ago for selling merchandise during a 2014 Australian tour, but the ruling was overturned in 2024 with the designer’s trademark cancelled.. The new decision found that Perry’s reputation was so well-established in Australia that anyone seeing Taylor’s clothing brand would not confuse the two names.. “This has been an incredibly long and difficult journey,” Taylor said in a statement shortly after the decision.. “But today confirms what I always believed – that trademarks should protect businesses of all sizes.”. The case centres around the sale of clothes under the Katie Perry brand in Australia and the sale of Katy Perry-branded merchandise during the singer’s tour.. In 2007, Taylor – who went under her maiden name at the time – registered her business name, Katie Perry, and applied for a trademark.. From 2008, she sold clothes at local markets, had a website and several social media accounts with the Katie Perry brand.. But in 2009, lawyers for the Roar singer asked Taylor to stop using her brand and signalled plans to oppose a trademark application but later dropped legal action.. “I had never heard of the singer when I started my label,” Taylor said, with court documents detailing how she first heard of Katy Perry in mid-2008 when the song I Kissed A Girl came on the radio.. “I was simply building a fashion business under the name I was born with.”. In 2023, Taylor sued the singer for trademark infringement and won, with the singer’s sale of jackets, hoodies, T-shirts and sweatpants during a 2014 tour in breach of trademark laws.. But in 2024, it was overturned on appeal, with judges saying Perry had been using her name as a trademark five years before Taylor started her business.. At the time, Taylor described the case as a “David and Goliath” battle, saying she was devastated by the decision.. On Wednesday, the High Court – in a majority decision – found that given the “heightened strength of the reputation of Katy Perry”, that “no ordinary person in Australia… after a moment’s reflection” would think Katie Perry products were linked to the US singer.. “This case has never just been about a name,” Taylor said.. “It has been about protecting small business in Australia, for standing up for what is right and showing that we all matter.”. In recent years, Katy Perry has made headlines for a range of reasons, from being mocked for kissing the earth after disembarking a Blue Origin spaceflight, to her high-profile divorce from actor Orlando  

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BBC News World

Member of Iranian football delegation granted Australian asylum changes her mind

​ Member of Iranian football delegation granted Australian asylum changes her mind. 3 hours ago. Katy Watson & Simon Atkinson,On the Gold Coastand. Ben Hatton. Supplied. Australia says one of the two members of the Iranian football group who had earlier accepted an offer to stay in the country has changed her mind.. “One of the two who had made the decision to stay last night, had spoken to some of the teammates who had left and had changed her mind,” Immigration Minister Tony Burke told parliament on Wednesday.. The two – one player and one member of support staff – had previously been reunited with another five players who were granted visas to stay over concerns about their safety.. The remaining Iranian players left Australia on Tuesday night local time – two days after they were knocked out of the Asian Cup.. “In Australia people are able to change their mind. We respect the context in which she had made that decision,” Burke said.. “Unfortunately, in making that decision, she’d been advised by her teammates and coach to contact the Iranian embassy and to get collected.”. He said as a result it meant the Iranian embassy knew the location of the other Iranians who had elected to stay.. “I immediately gave the instruction for people to be moved, and that’s been dealt with immediately,” Burke said.. He said officials had made sure “that this was her decision, and every question you would want asked, was asked.”. Some members of the Iranian football delegation had been granted asylum after concerns about the team’s safety when they did not sing the national anthem ahead of their match against South Korea last week.. Two other members of the team – player Mohaddeseh Zolfi and support staff member Zahra Soltan Meshkeh Kar – were later separated from the rest of the squad at their hotel on the Gold Coast, after indicating they would like to remain. They were then taken to a police facility in Brisbane, Burke had said previously.. All the women who stayed were to be fast-tracked to permanent residency, Burke said.. The offer to stay was reiterated to “most” of the remainder of the delegation at Sydney Airport before they were due to leave the country on Tuesday night, he continued.. Burke said a “very significant” police presence at Sydney Airport ensured players were separated from minders while they talked to officials one-on-one through a translator, and were given the chance to call family.. Getty Images. None of them chose to accept the offer to stay, Burke said, but he added that one person got on the plane “quite late” after conversations with family.. “That individual made their own decision,” Burke said – noting that there had been no pressure on them to take the flight.. He added a small number of the travelling group were not invited to stay – thought to be a reference to be Iranian government minders.. “There are some leaving Australia who I am glad are not in Australia,” he said.. The team arrived at Sydney Airport from the Gold  

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BBC News World

Woman charged with attempted murder after shooting at Rihanna’s home

​ Woman charged with attempted murder after shooting at Rihanna’s home. 5 hours ago. Ottilie Mitchell. Getty Images. A 35-year-old woman from Orlando, Florida has been charged with attempted murder following a shooting at the home of pop superstar Rihanna, prosecutors said.. Ivanna Lisette Ortiz is accused of firing a semiautomatic rifle at the singer’s Los Angeles mansion at 13:15 local time (21:15 GMT) on Sunday.. No one was injured in the shooting. Ortiz is being held on bail set at $1.875m (£1.395m), facing a possible life sentence.. Police are investigating the motive for the attack that took place while Rihanna and her rapper partner A$AP Rocky were at the home, the BBC’s US news partner CBS reports.. Ortiz has been accused of driving up to the front of the house and firing the weapon multiple times at it, before fleeing.. Her white Tesla was located about eight miles (12km) from the singer’s home at the Sherman Oaks Galleria shopping centre, where the woman was taken into custody.. “Opening fire in any populated neighbourhood is extremely dangerous, puts lives at risk and will be fully prosecuted,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said.. Prosecutors noted that there were people in Rihanna’s home as well as the property adjacent to it at the time of the shooting.. “This careless violence will not be tolerated in our community. Such shooters will find their next destination to be our jails and prisons,” Hochman added.. Ortiz faces multiple other charges including ten felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and three felony counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling or camper.. According to CBS, the LAPD has found a series of posts on her social media mentioning Rihanna.. In one post on X, Ortiz wrote: “Are you there? … say something to me directly instead of sneaking around like you talking to me where I’m not at.”. Video from the singer’s address shows suitcases being wheeled away on the day after the shooting.. The Barbados-born celebrity, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, rose to prominence in the early 2000s with hits like Pon de Replay and Umbrella.. She shares three children with partner A$AP Rocky, who last February was found not guilty of firing a gun at a former friend, in a trial that saw Rihanna bring her two sons to court.. DUTCH/Bauer-Griffin/GCImages. Woman arrested after Rihanna’s Beverly Hills mansion hit by gunfire. A$AP Rocky. United States. Music  

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