Miami-Dade officials drop charge of battery by strangulation against rapper due to ‘insufficient evidence’

Florida prosecutors on Thursday dropped a felony charge against rapper Rick Ross nearly a month after he was arrested in Miami Beach when a woman he was living with told police he hit her, court records said.

The Miami-Dade state attorney’s office filed paperwork on Thursday to drop a felony charge of battery by strangulation because of “insufficient evidence”. Ross, whose legal name is William Roberts II, still faces a misdemeanor charge of battery domestic violence.

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© Photograph: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images

Thirty-three months after it was announced, the grime legend’s new album is coming out. He explains how skinheads, fatherhood and rap history came to bear on its socially conscious contents

‘I can’t be perfect,” Skepta says, pulling a black Arc’tyrex beanie down over a furrowed brow with both hands. “But I can be conscious.” The self-proclaimed king of grime has always been a serious person, wary of fools and time-wasters. Focus is important to him, perhaps because he’s often multitasking: balancing his music career, his fashion label Mains, film-making and acting (his debut short, Tribal Mark, came out in 2024), his Big Smoke festival and a house music project, Más Tiempo.

He coordinates them all from the scruffy but functional studio in London’s West End where we meet. At one point, he picks up a Rubik’s Cube from the cluttered coffee table, and, over the course of five minutes of conversation, solves it. “This album has been winding me up,” he admits, referring to The Fork and Knife, which is out next week, 33 months after it was first announced. “But I think I’ve actually made something here that is what the people want from me.”

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© Photograph: Jordan Hemingway

© Photograph: Jordan Hemingway

© Photograph: Jordan Hemingway

In our news wrap Thursday, a local ceasefire in Oleshky held for a third day with humanitarian aid set to enter the Russian-held Ukrainian city soon, the Pentagon is reportedly accusing a recently fired Army general of misconduct amid allegations that he leaked classified information to the media and stage and screen legend Patrick Stewart has died.

In our news wrap Wednesday, the Federal Reserve held interest rates unchanged even as officials acknowledged that inflation remains elevated, the federal judge overseeing the prosecution of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro died at the age of 92 and hundreds of passengers aboard a cruise ship found themselves stranded in Cambodia after their trip was cut short due to high fuel prices.

In our news wrap Tuesday, the State Department said it will provide U.S. visas to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family following his loss in Brazil's election, President Trump insists the East Potomac Golf Course will close for renovations despite a judge's order blocking major changes and a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky was holding as a humanitarian truce took effect.

3Arena, Dublin
Several unannounced guests feature on the first European date of the rapper’s sold-out benefit tour, including video messages from Mark Ruffalo and Cynthia Nixon

“We’d like to thank Ed Sheeran for organising this concert,” offers a member of Kneecap, one of several unannounced guests who have turned up for the first European date of Macklemore’s Free Palestine tour. It’s a characteristically two-fisted approach to the matter in hand from a band who have seldom shied away from controversy, but it has more than a grain of truth in it.

The events of the last six weeks are quite something, and perhaps not what Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, had in mind when he led efforts to pressurise Sheeran to remove Macklemore from his summer US tour, after the rapper made a speech about Palestine on stage at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. Macklemore was duly removed from the tour, but the rapper saw his profile rise dramatically as a result – in fairness, he was hardly unknown, but his biggest hits are a decade old – while every other artist on Sheeran’s tour quit in solidarity. Sheeran’s tour limped on amid much opprobrium, while Macklemore was able to translate the publicity into a tour of his own, in noticeably bigger venues than he played on his last European tour, with proceeds donated to organisations assisting Palestinians. Dublin’s 13,000-capacity 3Arena is sold out, as is every other date on the tour.

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© Photograph: Zoe Rain

© Photograph: Zoe Rain

© Photograph: Zoe Rain

In our news wrap Monday, AI giant Anthropic officially kicked off what could be one of the biggest initial public offerings ever, at least two Catholic bishops have expressed regret for taking part in a White House meeting that was later made public and a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally when it fired Maureen Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.

In our news wrap Friday, the White House says Melania Trump brokered a localized ceasefire deal in the Ukrainian city of Oleshky, Romania's president blamed Russia for a drone strike that sank a cargo ship in the Black Sea and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the army there to prepare for a full closure of the occupied West Bank.

In our news wrap Thursday, federal authorities charged Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas with running a criminal marijuana enterprise, New York City lawmakers voted to ban horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park and a judge in Florida ordered President Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC, or the case could be dismissed.

In our news wrap Wednesday, a major cybersecurity threat prompted a scramble to protect websites around the world, 1,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes in Toledo, Ohio, following a chemical tank explosion and the Supreme Court is blocking the Trump administration from enforcing new restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender prisoners.

In our news wrap Tuesday, British authorities say they're sending air support to Saudi Arabia to protect against missiles and drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Vice President Vance says he's not endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israeli elections and voters in Alberta overwhelmingly rejected a referendum that would have put the province on a path toward independence.

In our news wrap Monday, a federal judge clashed with Justice Department lawyers in the latest legal standoff over the fate of a Washington, D.C. golf course, the Supreme Court will review a Reconstruction-era ban on home distilleries and Israeli authorities say they've arrested at least ten people in connection with recent settler attacks in the occupied West Bank.

In our news wrap Friday, White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is "transitioning out" of her role after less than a week on the job, three large brush fires in Southern California are forcing people to flee their homes and dozens of Israeli settlers set cars and trees ablaze across the West Bank and attacked Palestinians as they gathered for their autumn olive harvest.