Micheal Ward arrives at the premiere of "Eddington" on Thursday, June 26, 2025, at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
LONDON (AP) --
British actor Micheal Ward has been charged with rape and sexual assault, police said Friday.
The Metropolitan Police force said the 27-year-old faces two counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault. The charges relate to one woman and the offenses reportedly took place in January 2023.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it authorized the charges “having carefully reviewed a file of evidence.”
Ward is due to appear at London’s Thames Magistrates’ Court on Aug. 28.
Ward has appeared in films including “Blue Story,” “The Book of Clarence” and the recently released American political satire “Eddington.”
In 2020 he won the Rising Star award at the British Academy Film Awards, or BAFTAs. He was nominated for an acting BAFTA for Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light” and for a BAFTA television award for the Steve McQueen-directed series “Small Axe.”
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Elon Musk, center, arrives for a Twitter shareholder trial at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Elon Musk continued to defend his actions in the months leading up to his 2022 purchase of Twitter in court Thursday as he faces a class action lawsuit claiming he misled investors and caused them to lose millions of dollars.
The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, a social media service he renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share.
The case, which represents Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, revolves around allegations that Musk violated federal securities laws while taking a series of calculated steps to drive down the company's stock price in an attempt to either blow up the deal or wrangle a lower sales price.
Taking the stand for the second day, Musk continued to double down on his assertion that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5% it disclosed in regulatory filings.
The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn't new at the time Musk negotiated the deal. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years, while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
But Musk and some outside analysts say the number was much higher, at least 20%. Saying the bot number was at least this high was like "saying the grass is green or the sky is blue," Musk said.
