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Tag: social medium

  • Is social media harmful for kids? Meta and YouTube face trial after TikTok settles suit

    TikTok has agreed to settle the first in a series of closely-watched product liability cases, bowing out on the eve of a landmark trial that could upend how social media giants engage their youngest users and leave tech titans on the hook for billions in damages.

    The settlement was reached as jury selection was set to begin in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday and comes a week after Snap reached a deal with the same plaintiff, a Chico, Calif., woman who said she became addicted to social media starting in elementary school.

    “This settlement should come as no surprise because that damning evidence is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, an industry watchdog. “This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products.”

    TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Monday’s settlement.

    “The Parties are pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner,” Snap spokeswoman Monique Bellamy said of the settlement.

    The remaining defendants, Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube, still face claims that their products are “defective” and designed to keep children hooked to apps its makers know are harmful.

    Those same arguments are at the heart of at least 2,500 cases currently pending together in state and federal courts. The Los Angeles trial is among a handful of bellwethers meant to clarify the uncharted legal terrain.

    Social media companies are protected by the 1st Amendment and by Section 230, a decades-old law that shields internet companies from liability for what users produce and share on their platforms.

    Attorneys for the Chico plaintiff, referred to in court documents as K.G.M., say the apps were built and refined to snare youngsters and keep them on the platforms without regard for dangers the companies knew lurked there, including sexual predation, bullying and promotion of self-harm and even suicide.

    As the claims against Meta and YouTube head to trial, jurors will be asked to weigh whether those dangers are incidental or inherent, and if social media companies can be held responsible for the harm families say flowed from their children’s feeds.

    Scores of potential jurors filled the beige terrazzo hallway outside Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl’s courtroom downtown Tuesday morning, most passing the time on social apps on their phones. Some watched short-form videos while others thumbed through their feeds, pausing every so often to tap a like on a post.

    Roughly 450 Angelenos will be vetted this week for spots on the jury. The trial is expected to last through March.

    Instagram is 15 years old, YouTube almost 21. Finding Angelenos unfamiliar with either is likely impossible. The trial comes at a moment when public opinion around social media has soured, with a growing sentiment among parents, mental health professionals, lawmakers and even children themselves that the apps do more harm than good.

    The judge told prospective jurors that lawyers on the case could not review their online profiles. “We know many of you use defendants’ social media and video-sharing platforms, and you’re not being asked to stop, but until you’re excused, you should not change how you use social media and you should not investigate features you don’t usually use,” Kuhl said in court.

    Phones are now banned in California public school classrooms. Many private schools impose strict rules around when and how social media can be used.

    In study after study, pluralities of young users — among them the youngest of “Anxious Generation” Zoomers and the oldest Gen Alpha’s iPad kids — now say they spend too much time on the apps. A disputed but growing body of research suggests some portion are addicted.

    According to a study last spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, roughly half of teens say social media is bad for people their age, that it interferes with their sleep and that it hurts their productivity. Almost a quarter say it has brought down their grades. And 1 in 5 say it has hurt their mental health.

    Experts say social media has also helped drive the increase in suicides among teen girls, and a post-pandemic surge in eating disorders.

    K.G.M., the first bellwether plaintiff, said she started watching YouTube at age 6, and was uploading content to the site by age 8.

    Today, about 85% of children under 12 watch YouTube and half of those watch it daily, according to Pew.

    At 9, according to K.G.M.’s lawsuit, she got her first iPhone and joined Instagram.

    By the time she joined Snapchat at age 13, she was spending almost every waking hour scrolling, posting and agonizing over her engagement, despite bullying from peers, hate comments from strangers and sexually explicit overtures from adult men.

    “When I was in middle school, I used to go and hide in the counselor’s office … just to go on my phone,” she said in a deposition last year.

    Around that time, she said Instagram began serving her content about self-harm and restrictive eating.

    “I believe that social media, her addiction to social media, has changed the way her brain works,” the plaintiff’s mother, Karen, said in a related filing. “She has no long-term memory. She can’t live without a phone. She is willing to go to battle if you were even to touch her phone.”

    “There became a point where she was so addicted that I could not get the phone out of her hand,” she said.

    K.G.M.’s sister was even more blunt.

    “Whenever my mom would take her phone away … she would have a meltdown like someone had died,” the sister said. “She would have so many meltdowns anytime her phone was taken away, and it was because she wouldn’t be able to use Instagram.”

    “I wish I never downloaded it,” the plaintiff later told her sister, according to the deposition. “I wish I never got it in the first place.”

    Boosters of the litigation compare their quest to the fight against Big Tobacco and the opioid-maker Purdue.

    “This is the beginning of the trial of our generation,” said Haworth, the tech industry watchdog.

    But the gulf between public opinion and civil culpability is vast, attorneys for the platforms say. Social media addiction is not a formal clinical diagnosis, and proving that it exists, and that the companies bear responsibility for it, will be an uphill battle.

    Lawyers for YouTube have sought to further complicate the picture by claiming their video-sharing site is not social media at all and cannot be lumped in with the likes of Instagram and TikTok.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs say such distinctions are ephemeral, pointing out that YouTube has by far the youngest group of users, many of whom say the platform was an on-ramp to the world of social media.

    “I am equally shocked … by the internal documents that I have seen from all four of these defendants regarding their knowing decision to addict kids to a platform knowing it would be bad for them,” said attorney Matthew Bergman of the Social Media Victims Law Center. “To me they are all outrageous in their decision to elevate their profits over the safety of kids.”

    Sonja Sharp

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  • Commentary: This is not normal: Why a fake arrest photo from the White House matters

    How do you know what you know?

    Did you learn it in school, read it in a newspaper? Did you get your information on social media or though chatter with friends?

    Even in an age of misinformation and disinformation — which we really need to start clearly calling propaganda — we continue to rely on old ways of knowing. We take it for granted that if we really need to get to the truth, there’s a way to do it, even if it means cracking the pages of one of those ancient conveyors of wisdom, a book.

    But we are entering an era in America when knowledge is about to be hard to come by. It would be easy to shrug off this escalation of the war on truth as just more Trump nonsense, but it is much more than that. Authoritarians take power in the short term by fear and maybe force. In the long term, they rely on ignorance — an erasure of knowledge to leave people believing that there was ever anything different than what is.

    This is how our kids, future generations, come to be controlled. They simply don’t know what was, and therefore are at a great disadvantage in imagining what could be.

    This week, the White House altered a photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, the civil rights lawyer arrested in Minneapolis for protesting inside a church.

    The original photo shows Armstrong in handcuffs being led away by a federal officer with his face blurred out. Armstrong is composed and steady in this image. A veteran of social justice movements and a trained attorney, she appears as one might expect, her expression troubled but calm.

    In the photo released by the White House, Armstrong is sobbing, her mouth hanging open in despair. In what is clearly nothing more than overt racism, it appears her skin has been darkened. Her braided hair, neatly styled in the original picture, is disheveled in the Trump image.

    On the left, a photograph from the X (formerly Twitter) account of U.S. Secretary Kristi Noem, showing Nekima Levy Armstrong being arrested. On the right, the photo has been altered before being posted to the White House’s X (formerly Twitter) account.

    (@Sec_Noem via X/@WhiteHouse via X)

    A strong, composed resister is turned into a weeping, weak failure.

    “YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter,”

    That was the official White House response to inquiries about the photo, posted on social media.

    The same week, the Trump administration began ripping down exhibits at the President’s House in Philadelphia that told the story of the nine Black people held in bondage there by George Washington. I’ve been to that exhibit and had planned to take my kids this summer to learn about Joe Richardson, Christopher Sheels, Austin, Hercules, Giles, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris and Richmond.

    They are names that barely made it into American history. Many have never heard of them. Now, this administration is attempting to erase them.

    How do you know what you know? I learned most of what I knew about these folks from that signage, which is probably in a dump somewhere by now.

    The information we once took for granted on government websites such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is gone. Climate change information; LGBTQ+ information; even agricultural information. Gone (though courts have ordered some restored).

    The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, which tracked federal police misconduct, has been shut down.

    The Smithsonian is undergoing an ideological review.

    And now, our government is telling us it will alter in real time images of dissenters to create its own narrative, demand we believe not our own eyes, our own knowledge, but the narrative they create.

    “I’ll end with this, we’re being told one story which is totally different than what’s occurring,” said Cumberland County, Me., Sheriff Kevin Joyce.

    He was speaking specifically about an incident in his town in which a corrections officer recruit was detained by ICE this week. In video taken by a bystander, about five agents pull the man from his car as he drives home after work. They then leave the car running in the street as they take him away.

    Joyce told reporters the man had a clean background check before being hired, had no criminal record, and was working legally in the country. The sheriff has no idea where the man is being held.

    Joyce’s sentiment, that what we are being told isn’t what’s happening, applies to nearly everything we are seeing with our own eyes.

    A woman shot through her temple, through the side window of her car? You don’t understand what you are seeing. It was justified, our vice president has told us, without even the need for an investigation.

    Goodbye Renee Good. They are attempting in real time to erase her reality and instead morph her into a domestic terrorist committing “heinous” crimes, and maybe even worse.

    “You have a small band of very far left people who are doing everything they can … to try to make ICE out to be the ultimate enemy, and engage in this weird, small-scale civil war,” Vice President JD Vance said this week.

    Protesting turned into civil war.

    Next up, artificial intelligence is getting into the erasure game. Scientists are warning that those who wish to destroy truth will soon unleash AI-run operations in which thousands if not millions of social media posts will offer up whatever alternative reality those in control of it wish. Under the pressure of that avalanche of lies, many will believe.

    The message the White House is sending with Armstrong’s photo is that they control the truth, they decide what it is.

    Our job is to fight for truth, know it when we see it, and demand it not be erased.

    Anita Chabria

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  • Trombone Shorty performs for neighbor’s show and tell

    Imagine living next to one of New Orleans’ most famous musicians. Then, imagine inviting them to perform for your school’s show and tell.That’s exactly what happened for one St. Dominic School student.St. Dominic got a special surprise on Thursday after Trombone Shorty gave the students their own private concert.The school posted to their social media that Trombone Shorty filled the schoolyard with Mardi Gras spirit, and this was an unforgettable experience.

    NEW ORLEANS —

    Imagine living next to one of New Orleans’ most famous musicians. Then, imagine inviting them to perform for your school’s show and tell.

    That’s exactly what happened for one St. Dominic School student.

    St. Dominic got a special surprise on Thursday after Trombone Shorty gave the students their own private concert.

    The school posted to their social media that Trombone Shorty filled the schoolyard with Mardi Gras spirit, and this was an unforgettable experience.

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  • Commentary: She went to jail for Trump’s Big Lie. He’s trying to get her sprung

    DENVER — Just in time for the holidays, President Trump has issued another of his dubious pardons. Or rather, make that a “pardon.”

    This one comes on behalf of a former Colorado elections official serving a nine-year sentence for election fraud.

    “Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure our elections were fair and honest,” Trump said in a typically gaseous, dissembling post on social media.

    “Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” the president went on. “Today I am granting Tina a full pardon for her attempts to expose voter fraud in the rigged 2020 Presidential Election.”

    Actually, Peters’ crime was conspiring to let an unauthorized person access voting equipment as part of a nutty scheme to “prove” the November 2020 balloting was bogus, then lying and covering up her illegal actions.

    And she’s not likely to leave jail anytime soon.

    That’s because Trump has precisely zero say over Peters’ fate, given the former Mesa County elections chief was convicted on state charges. The president’s pardon power — which Trump has twisted to a snapping point — extends only to federal cases. If we’re going to play make-believe, then perhaps Foo-Foo the Snoo can personally escort Peters from prison and crown her Queen of the Rockies.

    That’s not to suggest, however, that Trump’s empty gesture was harmless. (Apologies to Foo-Foo and Dr. Seuss.)

    Some extremists, ever ready to do Trump’s malevolent bidding, have taken up Peters’ cause, using the same belligerent language that foreshadowed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In fact, threats have come from some of the very same thugs whom Trump pardoned in one of the first shameless acts of his presidency.

    “WE THE PEOPLE ARE COMING TO BREAK TINA PETERS OUT OF PRISON IN 45 DAYS,” Jake Lang, a rioter who was charged with attacking police with an aluminum baseball bat, said on social media. “If Tina M. Peters is not released from La Vista Prison in Colorado to Federal Authorities by January 31st, 2026; US MARSHALS & JANUARY 6ERS PATRIOTS WILL BE STORMING IN TO FREE TINA!!”’

    (Capitalization and random punctuation are apparently the way to show fervency as well as prove one’s MAGA bona fides.)

    Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys extremist group whom Trump also pardoned, shared a screenshot of the president’s social media post. “A battle,” Tarrio said, “is coming.”

    Trump’s pretend pardon is not the first intervention on Peters’ behalf.

    In March, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to free her from prison, saying there were “reasonable concerns” about the length of Peters’ sentence. The judge declined.

    In November, the administration wrote the Colorado Department of Corrections and asked that Peters be transferred to federal custody, which would presumably allow for her release. No go.

    Earlier this month, apparently looking to up the pressure, the Justice Department announced an investigation of the state’s prison system. (Perhaps Peters was denied the special “magnetic mattress” she requested at her sentencing, to help deal with sleep issues.)

    Like any child, when Trump doesn’t get his way he calls people names. On Monday, he set his sights on Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis — “a weak and pathetic man” — for refusing to spring Peters from state prison.

    “The criminals from Venezuela took over sections of Colorado,” Trump said, “and he was afraid to do anything, but he puts Tina in jail for nine years because she caught people cheating.”

    The only true part of that statement is that Colorado does, in fact, exist.

    While Trump portrays Peters as a martyr, she is nothing of the sort.

    As Polis noted in response to Trump’s “pardon,” she was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and convicted by a jury of her peers — a jury, it should be noted, that was drawn from the citizenry of Mesa County. The place is no liberal playpen. Voters in the rugged enclave on Colorado’s Western Slope backed Trump all three times he ran for president, by margins approaching 2-to-1.

    If Peters’ sentence seems harsh — which it does — hear what the judge had to say.

    Peters was motivated not by principle or a search for the truth but rather, he suggested, vanity and personal aggrandizement. She betrayed the public trust and eroded faith in an honestly run election to ingratiate herself with Trump and others grifting off his Big Lie.

    “You are as privileged as they come and you used that privilege to obtain power, a following and fame,” Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters in a lacerating lecture. “You’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”

    Peters remains unrepentant.

    In petitioning Trump for a pardon, her attorney submitted nine pages of cockamamie claims, asserting that Peters was the victim of a conspiracy involving, among others, voting-machine vendors, Colorado’s secretary of state and the Venezuelan government.

    To her credit, Peters has rejected calls for violence to set her free.

    “Tina categorically DENOUNCES and REJECTS any statements or OPERATIONS, public or private, involving a ‘prison break’ or use of force against La Vista or any other CDOC facility in any way,” a post on social media stated, again with the random capitalization.

    Perhaps the parole board will take note of those sentiments when the 70-year-old Peters becomes eligible for conditional release in January 2029, a date that just happens to coincide with the end of Trump’s term.

    Which seems fitting.

    Keep Peters locked up until then, serving as an example and deterrent to others who might consider emulating her by vandalizing the truth and attacking our democracy.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Stockton rapper MBNel responds to mass shooting at birthday party

    DELAYED BRIEFLY WHILE CREWS CHECKED THE TRACKS. A STOCKTON RAPPER POSTED A STATEMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME TONIGHT AFTER THE DEADLY MASS SHOOTING THAT KILLED FOUR PEOPLE, INCLUDING THREE CHILDREN, AND INJURED 13 OTHERS. WITNESSES TELLING KCRA THREE THAT THE RAPPER JANELLE WAS AT THAT CHILD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY ON NOVEMBER 29TH, WHEN THAT SHOOTING BROKE OUT. IN A POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY, HE SAID IN PART, THERE ARE NO WORDS THAT CAN MAKE SENSE OF THIS AND I DO NOT WANT TO ADD NOISE WHERE THERE SHOULD BE CARE. AND HE ADDS, OUT OF RESPECT, I’M CHOOSING TO MOVE QUIETLY AND INTENTIONALLY. I WILL NOT BE SPEAKING ON DETAILS OR SPECULATION. MEANTIME, NEARLY THREE WEEKS AFTER

    Stockton rapper MBNel responds to mass shooting at birthday party

    Updated: 11:17 PM PST Dec 19, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    It’s been nearly three weeks since a mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton that killed three children and an adult. On Friday, a rapper took to social media for the first time to address the tragedy.Witnesses previously told KCRA 3 that rapper MBNel was in attendance at the Nov. 29 party where the shooting took place. In a social media post, MBNel said:”My deepest condolences to the families who had to bury their children, and to the innocent lives lost. What happened in Stockton has left families carrying an unimaginable loss. There are no words that can make sense of this, and I do not want to add noise where there should be care. This is about the families, and no one else. Out of respect, I am choosing to move quietly and intentionally. I will not be speaking on details or speculation. Rest in peace to the lives lost may their souls live on forever.” On Thursday, San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow expressed confidence in the ongoing investigation and extended his sympathies to the affected families during his monthly address on Facebook. Withrow noted that the investigation is going extremely well. However, authorities said there is no new information to share about the case.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    It’s been nearly three weeks since a mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton that killed three children and an adult. On Friday, a rapper took to social media for the first time to address the tragedy.

    Witnesses previously told KCRA 3 that rapper MBNel was in attendance at the Nov. 29 party where the shooting took place.

    In a social media post, MBNel said:

    “My deepest condolences to the families who had to bury their children, and to the innocent lives lost. What happened in Stockton has left families carrying an unimaginable loss. There are no words that can make sense of this, and I do not want to add noise where there should be care. This is about the families, and no one else. Out of respect, I am choosing to move quietly and intentionally. I will not be speaking on details or speculation. Rest in peace to the lives lost may their souls live on forever.”

    On Thursday, San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow expressed confidence in the ongoing investigation and extended his sympathies to the affected families during his monthly address on Facebook.

    Withrow noted that the investigation is going extremely well.

    However, authorities said there is no new information to share about the case.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • 18-year-old wanted for stealing grandmother’s gun from her Volusia County apartment

    18-year-old wanted for stealing grandmother’s gun from her Volusia County apartment

    Updated: 11:28 PM EST Dec 16, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Deputies are searching for Kendrick Graham, 18, who allegedly stole a loaded firearm from his grandmother’s apartment on Belltower Avenue in Deltona.According to the report, there were signs of forced entry to her bedroom. Graham has since been posting photos with the gun on social media.His family has been in contact with him, and he’s refusing to turn himself in. If you have information, contact VSO on 911 or email Det. Borbely at JBorbely@volusiasheriff.gov.

    VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. —

    Deputies are searching for Kendrick Graham, 18, who allegedly stole a loaded firearm from his grandmother’s apartment on Belltower Avenue in Deltona.

    According to the report, there were signs of forced entry to her bedroom. Graham has since been posting photos with the gun on social media.

    18-year-old wanted for stealing grandma's gun from volusia county apartment

    Volusia County Sheriff’s Office

    His family has been in contact with him, and he’s refusing to turn himself in. If you have information, contact VSO on 911 or email Det. Borbely at JBorbely@volusiasheriff.gov.

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  • 15-year-old Rio Linda girl found, suspect outstanding, says sheriff’s office

    A 15-year-old girl was found safe late Sunday after she was reported missing hours earlier, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.Deputies are still searching for a teen suspect who they believe kidnapped her.The girl was placed into the temporary custody of Sacramento County Child Protective Services, deputies said.”This is not just a runaway girlfriend with her boyfriend trying to get away,” said Sergeant Amar Gandhi.Citali Itzpapalot Lerma was last seen getting into a dark-colored SUV against her will on Sunday morning in the Rio Linda area, according to a post on the office’s social media. Lerma has long brown hair, brown eyes and was wearing a dark gray hoodie, light blue ripped jeans and black New Balance shoes. “We don’t know if it was her current boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend or some sort of dating relationship,” Gandhi added. “The 17-year-old forced her into the car and drove away.”Deputies are also looking for 17-year-old Jesse Carranza in connection to the case. The sheriff’s office says he may have kidnapped Lerma. Carranza was last seen driving a dark SUV in the Rio Linda area and wearing a gray hoodie and blue jeans. “The 17-year-old has a bit of a criminal history already and has a felony warrant for an unrelated incident,” Gandhi said. “There is also some history with crimes, potentially some exploitation involving our victim.”It’s believed the victim might be used for sex trafficking. “A lot of these victims are manipulated and they are forced into doing things that they don’t necessarily want to do,” Gandhi added.Sunday afternoon, Lerma posted a message on social media saying she didn’t leave against her will. Deputies aren’t so sure.”We don’t know if that video was made under duress,” Gandhi said. “We don’t know the full circumstances. You can’t see her face.””This is something that happens every day across rural, urban, and suburban communities across the United States, and I think it is imperative to see this as a public health crisis,” said Ashlie Bryant.Bryant is CEO of 3 Stands Global, a local organization that helps victims of sex trafficking.”California has the highest rates of human trafficking as well as online exploitation in the country,” Bryant added. “I wish we didn’t have jobs to combat this. I wish it didn’t exist, but the reality is that it does, and our jobs are to prevent it.”The sheriff’s office is asking for the public’s help in locating the suspect. Contact their office at (916) 874-5115 with any information. This story is developing. Stay with KCRA 3 for updates. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    RIO LINDA, Calif. —

    A 15-year-old girl was found safe late Sunday after she was reported missing hours earlier, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

    Deputies are still searching for a teen suspect who they believe kidnapped her.

    The girl was placed into the temporary custody of Sacramento County Child Protective Services, deputies said.

    “This is not just a runaway girlfriend with her boyfriend trying to get away,” said Sergeant Amar Gandhi.

    Citali Itzpapalot Lerma was last seen getting into a dark-colored SUV against her will on Sunday morning in the Rio Linda area, according to a post on the office’s social media. Lerma has long brown hair, brown eyes and was wearing a dark gray hoodie, light blue ripped jeans and black New Balance shoes.

    “We don’t know if it was her current boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend or some sort of dating relationship,” Gandhi added. “The 17-year-old forced her into the car and drove away.”

    Deputies are also looking for 17-year-old Jesse Carranza in connection to the case. The sheriff’s office says he may have kidnapped Lerma. Carranza was last seen driving a dark SUV in the Rio Linda area and wearing a gray hoodie and blue jeans.

    “The 17-year-old has a bit of a criminal history already and has a felony warrant for an unrelated incident,” Gandhi said. “There is also some history with crimes, potentially some exploitation involving our victim.”

    It’s believed the victim might be used for sex trafficking.

    “A lot of these victims are manipulated and they are forced into doing things that they don’t necessarily want to do,” Gandhi added.

    Sunday afternoon, Lerma posted a message on social media saying she didn’t leave against her will. Deputies aren’t so sure.

    “We don’t know if that video was made under duress,” Gandhi said. “We don’t know the full circumstances. You can’t see her face.”

    “This is something that happens every day across rural, urban, and suburban communities across the United States, and I think it is imperative to see this as a public health crisis,” said Ashlie Bryant.

    Bryant is CEO of 3 Stands Global, a local organization that helps victims of sex trafficking.

    “California has the highest rates of human trafficking as well as online exploitation in the country,” Bryant added. “I wish we didn’t have jobs to combat this. I wish it didn’t exist, but the reality is that it does, and our jobs are to prevent it.”

    The sheriff’s office is asking for the public’s help in locating the suspect. Contact their office at (916) 874-5115 with any information.

    This story is developing. Stay with KCRA 3 for updates.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Influencer-fueled protein trends are reshaping everyday snacks and weight goals

    New diets come and go often, but every now and then, some stick around. The latest: protein. Everyone seems to be looking for more ways to add it to their diet.From coffee shops to grocery stores, you couldn’t miss the promotion of protein even if you tried. But how much do you need? Doctors and nutritionists say it’s less than what social media might lead consumers to believe. Prioritizing protein isn’t new, but the number of people doing so is.”Things tend to go to an extreme at first,” said Kim Flannery, director of nutrition at the Wisconsin Athletic Club. “And I think that’s kind of where we are right now.”It’s everywhere, from social media influencers and now in coffee shops.For the first time, Starbucks added protein to its menu of drinks, even allowing customers to add it to their cold foam on top of their coffee.The trend has continued at the grocery store, too.Emilie Williamson with Metro Market said she’s seen a substantial increase in protein-filled snacks. “A big goal of ours is to meet shoppers where they’re at,” Williamson said.Walking down the aisle of your local grocery store, you will quickly find protein in many everyday snacks, like muffins, cereal, pretzels, chips, and even protein pastries.Dr. Lisa Morselli, assistant professor in the division of endocrinology at Froedtert Hospital in Wisconsin, said this is where she gets worried about the quality of the product.”These are all foods that are pretty processed,” Morselli said. “The protein snack marketing probably gives people license to snack without really paying attention to what they put in their mouth.”Morselli believes the trend has been influenced by social media.Morselli said those on GLP-1 weight loss medications need more protein in their diet for muscle gain.Separately, those looking to lose weight can find success in protein, too, according to Dr. Morselli.”Protein is involved in the control of hunger,” Morselli said.Morselli explains that protein-rich foods can make you feel full longer.Protein can also be great for balancing blood sugar levels. But for muscle gain or weight loss, protein isn’t a magic pill, either.”It’s not that if you take a higher protein, or if you have a higher protein intake, it will magically protect your muscles; you still need to exercise them,” Morselli said.Flannery said when talking to nutrition clients, she hopes to emphasize that protein is just one piece of the pie. “People tend to focus so much on the protein that they tend to lose the balance,” Flannery said.Flannery worries the trend of sharing personal protein goals could be going too far.”One number does not by any means apply to everyone,” Flannery said.Flannery said personal protein goals are different for everyone, with age, sex and activity levels all taken into consideration.According to the recommended dietary allowance, when calculating protein goals, the person should take .36 grams of protein per pound of body weight.For example, if the person weighs 150 pounds, a modest protein goal would be around 54 grams of protein.Arguably more importantly than any goal is the quality of protein the person is consuming.”A lot of the health problems that we have are due to the, all the processed foods,” Flannery reminds.A New York Times investigation in October found many popular protein powders and shakes contain dangerous levels of lead.Flannery said this is what worries her about the rise in protein snacks.”We’re just adding protein to junk food,” Flannery said.Flannery recommends getting protein from real foods like beans, tofu, meat, fish, and in some cases, pasta that can be healthy, too.”My opinion is that it’s better to eat real food and get your protein from real food,” Morselli agreed.

    New diets come and go often, but every now and then, some stick around. The latest: protein. Everyone seems to be looking for more ways to add it to their diet.

    From coffee shops to grocery stores, you couldn’t miss the promotion of protein even if you tried. But how much do you need?

    Doctors and nutritionists say it’s less than what social media might lead consumers to believe.

    Prioritizing protein isn’t new, but the number of people doing so is.

    “Things tend to go to an extreme at first,” said Kim Flannery, director of nutrition at the Wisconsin Athletic Club. “And I think that’s kind of where we are right now.”

    It’s everywhere, from social media influencers and now in coffee shops.

    For the first time, Starbucks added protein to its menu of drinks, even allowing customers to add it to their cold foam on top of their coffee.

    The trend has continued at the grocery store, too.

    Emilie Williamson with Metro Market said she’s seen a substantial increase in protein-filled snacks.

    “A big goal of ours is to meet shoppers where they’re at,” Williamson said.

    Walking down the aisle of your local grocery store, you will quickly find protein in many everyday snacks, like muffins, cereal, pretzels, chips, and even protein pastries.

    Dr. Lisa Morselli, assistant professor in the division of endocrinology at Froedtert Hospital in Wisconsin, said this is where she gets worried about the quality of the product.

    “These are all foods that are pretty processed,” Morselli said. “The protein snack marketing probably gives people license to snack without really paying attention to what they put in their mouth.”

    Morselli believes the trend has been influenced by social media.

    Morselli said those on GLP-1 weight loss medications need more protein in their diet for muscle gain.

    Separately, those looking to lose weight can find success in protein, too, according to Dr. Morselli.

    “Protein is involved in the control of hunger,” Morselli said.

    Morselli explains that protein-rich foods can make you feel full longer.

    Protein can also be great for balancing blood sugar levels. But for muscle gain or weight loss, protein isn’t a magic pill, either.

    “It’s not that if you take a higher protein, or if you have a higher protein intake, it will magically protect your muscles; you still need to exercise them,” Morselli said.

    Flannery said when talking to nutrition clients, she hopes to emphasize that protein is just one piece of the pie.

    “People tend to focus so much on the protein that they tend to lose the balance,” Flannery said.

    Flannery worries the trend of sharing personal protein goals could be going too far.

    “One number does not by any means apply to everyone,” Flannery said.

    Flannery said personal protein goals are different for everyone, with age, sex and activity levels all taken into consideration.

    According to the recommended dietary allowance, when calculating protein goals, the person should take .36 grams of protein per pound of body weight.

    For example, if the person weighs 150 pounds, a modest protein goal would be around 54 grams of protein.

    Arguably more importantly than any goal is the quality of protein the person is consuming.

    “A lot of the health problems that we have are due to the, all the processed foods,” Flannery reminds.

    A New York Times investigation in October found many popular protein powders and shakes contain dangerous levels of lead.

    Flannery said this is what worries her about the rise in protein snacks.

    “We’re just adding protein to junk food,” Flannery said.

    Flannery recommends getting protein from real foods like beans, tofu, meat, fish, and in some cases, pasta that can be healthy, too.

    “My opinion is that it’s better to eat real food and get your protein from real food,” Morselli agreed.

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  • Christian missionary father and daughter died when plane bound for Jamaica crashed in Florida

    A Christian missionary father and his daughter were killed when a small plane bound for a hurricane relief mission in Jamaica crashed in a South Florida neighborhood.Christian ministry organization Ignite the Fire identified the two victims of the Monday morning crash as the group’s founder, Alexander Wurm, 53, and his daughter Serena Wurm, 22.The pair were bringing humanitarian aid to Jamaica, according to the organization, when the Beechcraft King Air plane they were flying in crashed into a pond in a residential area of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, narrowly missing homes. As of Tuesday morning, investigators had not reported any other victims. In recent weeks, Alexander Wurm had helped deliver medical supplies, water filters and StarLink satellite internet equipment to Jamaica for the relief organization Crisis Response International, according to a video statement the group posted online. “He really made a difference in the lives of the people on the ground by getting the resources in that he did. He saved lives and he gave his life,” Crisis Response International founder Sean Malone added. According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the plane was manufactured in 1976 and its registered owner is listed as International Air Services, a company that markets itself as specializing in providing trust agreements to non-U.S. citizens that enable them to register their aircraft with the FAA. A person who answered the company’s phone Monday afternoon declined to answer questions from a reporter, stating “no comment” and ending the phone call.Posts by Alexander Wurm on social media in recent days suggested the evangelist had recently acquired the plane to further his missionary work across the Caribbean, describing the aircraft as “an older King Air with brand new engines,” and “perfect” to ferry deliveries of generators, batteries and building materials to Jamaica. Photos and videos on social media show Wurm posing for a picture in the plane’s cockpit and unloading boxes of supplies from the packed aircraft with teams of volunteers.The flight tracking website FlightAware shows the plane made four other trips to or from Jamaica in the past week, traveling between George Town in the Cayman Islands and Montego Bay and Negril in Jamaica, before landing in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. A powerful Category 5 storm, Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28 and tied for the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane in history. The storm also caused devastation in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and prompted relief organizations to mobilize.

    FLORIDA, USA —

    A Christian missionary father and his daughter were killed when a small plane bound for a hurricane relief mission in Jamaica crashed in a South Florida neighborhood.

    Christian ministry organization Ignite the Fire identified the two victims of the Monday morning crash as the group’s founder, Alexander Wurm, 53, and his daughter Serena Wurm, 22.

    The pair were bringing humanitarian aid to Jamaica, according to the organization, when the Beechcraft King Air plane they were flying in crashed into a pond in a residential area of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, narrowly missing homes. As of Tuesday morning, investigators had not reported any other victims.

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    In recent weeks, Alexander Wurm had helped deliver medical supplies, water filters and StarLink satellite internet equipment to Jamaica for the relief organization Crisis Response International, according to a video statement the group posted online.

    “He really made a difference in the lives of the people on the ground by getting the resources in that he did. He saved lives and he gave his life,” Crisis Response International founder Sean Malone added.

    According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the plane was manufactured in 1976 and its registered owner is listed as International Air Services, a company that markets itself as specializing in providing trust agreements to non-U.S. citizens that enable them to register their aircraft with the FAA. A person who answered the company’s phone Monday afternoon declined to answer questions from a reporter, stating “no comment” and ending the phone call.

    Posts by Alexander Wurm on social media in recent days suggested the evangelist had recently acquired the plane to further his missionary work across the Caribbean, describing the aircraft as “an older King Air with brand new engines,” and “perfect” to ferry deliveries of generators, batteries and building materials to Jamaica.

    Photos and videos on social media show Wurm posing for a picture in the plane’s cockpit and unloading boxes of supplies from the packed aircraft with teams of volunteers.

    The flight tracking website FlightAware shows the plane made four other trips to or from Jamaica in the past week, traveling between George Town in the Cayman Islands and Montego Bay and Negril in Jamaica, before landing in Fort Lauderdale on Friday.

    A powerful Category 5 storm, Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28 and tied for the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane in history. The storm also caused devastation in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and prompted relief organizations to mobilize.

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  • California D.A. retweets 9/11 attack images as he slams Mamdani

    A California district attorney reposted on social media 9/11 images along with comments blasting the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Despite the gory images and strong denunciation of Mamdani, Dan Dow insists that he has no issues with the Muslim community in San Luis Obispo County, where he is the top prosecutor.

    He has “strong ties” with the community, Dow said in an emailed statement Thursday to The Times.

    But his posts have drawn backlash, and a Muslim advocacy organization is demanding an apology and an investigation.

    On Wednesday, Dow retweeted a post on X from a popular right-wing account that appeared to show a snapshot moments after flames jutted from the South Tower, the second of the twin towers struck by a plane on Sept. 11, 2001.

    A second visual tweet, more graphic than the first, displayed footage from two angles of a plane barreling into one of the towers. That was posted by the leader of an activist organization, described as a hate group by some, that claims to “combat the threats from Islamic supremacists, radical leftists and their allies.”

    Each was posted in the aftermath of the New York City mayoral election won by 34-year-old democratic socialist Mamdani.

    The posts were retweeted and subtweeted days later and 3,000 miles away by Dow, drawing rebuke from some locals, in a story first broken by the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

    Dow responded to a Times email for comment saying his issue was not with the county’s Muslim population, which numbers around 500, according to the Assn. of Religion Data Archives.

    “I shared the posts because, in my opinion, Mamdani is going to destroy New York being a self-proclaimed socialist,” Dow responded. “I support the Muslim community and have strong ties to our Muslim community in San Luis Obispo.”

    The first post Dow retweeted came from the account @EndWokeness, which vows to its nearly 4 million followers that it’s “fighting, exposing, and mocking wokeness.”

    The second post came from Amy Mekelburg, founder of Rise, Align, Ignite and Reclaim (RAIR) Foundation, which is listed as a hate organization by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

    The council’s Los Angeles office demanded Thursday evening that Dow apologize and “retract his recent anti-Muslim social media posts.” CAIR-LA is also asking for an independent investigation into Dow’s conduct and “his fitness to continue to serve as DA.”

    The organization is incensed at his retweeting of Mekelburg, whom they describe as “a known anti-Muslim extremist.”

    Mekelburg wrote a sizable message on the video post, saying she’d “given my entire self” to warn the world “about the threat of Islam after 9/11.”

    “And now … to see New York — my city — stand in this moment, where someone like Zohran Mamdani could even be elected,” she wrote. “My God, New York, what have you done?”

    CAIR-LA said that Mekelburg “falsely equated the election of Mamdani with 9/11, reinforcing the harmful stereotype that Muslims are inherently tied to terrorism simply because of their faith.”

    Dow subtweeted that specific post with a message that began by highlighting his 32 years of service in the U.S. Army and his four tours overseas.

    “I remember like it was yesterday our nation being attacked by Islamic extremists on 9/11/2001,” he wrote. “I love this country and I do not in any way share the same views as the 33-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani.”

    He added in the tweet: “I am very sad to see the Big Apple torn apart by electing an un-American socialist who wants to trample on the values and freedoms that millions of Americans have fought and died for.”

    “Dow’s decision to repost content that weaponizes bigotry and baselessly ties an elected Muslim official to terrorism is appalling and reflects the deeply rooted dehumanization and fearmongering in this country that American Muslims have had to endure for decades,” CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said in a statement.

    Dow’s posts also struck a nerve with one of his Muslim allies in San Luis Obispo, Dr. Rushdi Cader, who referred to the district attorney as “a personal friend” to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

    Cader told the Tribune the posts were “highly incendiary and puts Muslims at risk for harm, especially hijab-wearing Muslim women like my wife Nisha, whom Dan has himself described as ‘a kind and gentle lady’ who he ‘prayed would be blessed with peace.’”

    Cader added he thought Dow’s “ugly post” was borne “out of disagreement with Mamdani’s politics” rather than any direct attack on Islam.”

    Dow’s tweets drew other rebukes.

    San Luis Obispo County Second District Supervisor Bruce Gibson called Dow a “Christian nationalist.”

    He “occupies a powerful public office that requires decency and discipline,” Gibson said of Dow. “This post is yet another example that he has neither.”

    San Luis Obispo Mayor Erica Stewart emailed The Times to say that the city was welcoming to all community members.

    “Dan Dow, as the county’s District Attorney, by definition, should be objective and fair,” she wrote. “For someone in his position to express racism is unacceptable.”

    Dow had his defenders too.

    Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer serves with Dow on the California District Attorneys Assn. Spitzer is the organization’s secretary-treasurer while Dow is the president.

    Spitzer found no fault with Dow’s social media posts.

    “Elected officials have a platform to share their views and be judged by their constituents,” he wrote in an email. “It is heartbreaking to see someone who has expressed such anti-public safety and anti-Semitic sentiments elected as mayor of New York, and we as the elected protectors of public safety have a right to express that.”

    Andrew J. Campa

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  • Volusia deputy arrested over alleged check-kiting scheme, sheriff says

    Former Volusia Deputy Douglas Meyer, 37, has been charged with organized scheme to defraud, and his badge has been melted down, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office. “Meyer thought he could get away with a check-kiting scheme where he wrote himself bad checks from one credit union to another, accessing funds by exploiting the time it takes for checks to clear,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood said in a post on social media.Meyer showed up at one of his credit unions in uniform to ask for the hold on his deposited checks to be released, and was caught on surveillance cameras.Meyer’s credit union reported the fraud to the VSO in September. At that point, the deputy had already turned in his badge.The former deputy worked for the VSO from 2020 to 2024, and again this year until he resigned in August. The sheriff’s office started an investigation that led to his felony charge, and Meyer turned himself in last night.According to court documents, Meyer allegedly did this over and over again at several different banks.Space Coast Credit Union in Daytona Beach took the biggest hit with a loss of just over $5,000, according to court records.”My goal is to make sure he’s held accountable and never works in law enforcement again,” Chitwood said. Meyer was arrested and posted his $7,500 cash bond the same day on Sunday, Nov. 2.

    VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. —

    Former Volusia Deputy Douglas Meyer, 37, has been charged with organized scheme to defraud, and his badge has been melted down, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.

    “Meyer thought he could get away with a check-kiting scheme where he wrote himself bad checks from one credit union to another, accessing funds by exploiting the time it takes for checks to clear,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood said in a post on social media.

    Meyer showed up at one of his credit unions in uniform to ask for the hold on his deposited checks to be released, and was caught on surveillance cameras.

    Meyer’s credit union reported the fraud to the VSO in September. At that point, the deputy had already turned in his badge.

    The former deputy worked for the VSO from 2020 to 2024, and again this year until he resigned in August.

    The sheriff’s office started an investigation that led to his felony charge, and Meyer turned himself in last night.

    According to court documents, Meyer allegedly did this over and over again at several different banks.

    Space Coast Credit Union in Daytona Beach took the biggest hit with a loss of just over $5,000, according to court records.

    “My goal is to make sure he’s held accountable and never works in law enforcement again,” Chitwood said.

    Meyer was arrested and posted his $7,500 cash bond the same day on Sunday, Nov. 2.

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    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

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  • President Trump threatens possible military action in Nigeria

    President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he is directing the Pentagon to prepare for possible military action in Nigeria, as he accused the country’s government of failing to stop the killing of Christians. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote on social media. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom the Trump administration is now referring to as the Secretary of War, responded soon after with his own post, saying, “Yes sir.” “The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately,” Hegseth wrote.On Friday, Trump also said he would designate Nigeria “a country of particular concern” for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians. Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responded on social media Saturday, saying his administration is open to deepening cooperation with the United States and the international community to protect people of all faiths. He also acknowledged the country’s security challenges but rejected Trump’s framing of his government’s response. “The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” Tinubu said. More from the Washington Bureau:

    WASHINGTON —

    President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he is directing the Pentagon to prepare for possible military action in Nigeria, as he accused the country’s government of failing to stop the killing of Christians.

    “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote on social media.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom the Trump administration is now referring to as the Secretary of War, responded soon after with his own post, saying, “Yes sir.”

    “The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately,” Hegseth wrote.

    On Friday, Trump also said he would designate Nigeria “a country of particular concern” for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.

    Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responded on social media Saturday, saying his administration is open to deepening cooperation with the United States and the international community to protect people of all faiths. He also acknowledged the country’s security challenges but rejected Trump’s framing of his government’s response.

    “The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” Tinubu said.

    More from the Washington Bureau:

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  • President Trump says he’s ending trade talks with Canada over TV ad

    President Donald Trump said late Thursday that he was ending “all trade negotiations” with Canada because of a television ad opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and called “egregious behavior” aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.The post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs. Trump’s call for an abrupt end to negotiations could further inflame trade tensions that already have been building between the two neighboring countries for months.Related video above: Earlier this month, Trump explained why a deal with Canada is complicatedTrump posted, “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.”“The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”Carney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The prime minister was set to leave Friday morning for a summit in Asia, while Trump is set to do the same Friday evening.Earlier Thursday night, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted on X that an ad created by the government of Ontario “misrepresents the ‘Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade’ dated April 25, 1987.” It added that Ontario did not receive foundation permission “to use and edit the remarks.”The foundation said it is “reviewing legal options in this matter” and invited the public to watch the unedited video of Reagan’s address.Carney met with Trump earlier this month to try to ease trade tensions, as the two countries and Mexico prepare for a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a trade deal Trump negotiated in his first term, but has since soured on.More than three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the U.S., and nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border daily.Trump said earlier this week that he had seen the ad on television and said that it showed that his tariffs were having an impact.“I saw an ad last night from Canada. If I was Canada, I’d take that same ad also,” he said then.In his own post on X last week, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, posted a link to the ad and the message: “It’s official: Ontario’s new advertising campaign in the U.S. has launched.”He continued, “Using every tool we have, we’ll never stop making the case against American tariffs on Canada. The way to prosperity is by working together.”A spokesperson for Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. But Ford previously got Trump’s attention with an electricity surcharge to U.S. states. Trump responded by doubling steel and aluminum tariffs.The president has moved to impose steep U.S. tariffs on many goods from Canada. In April, Canada’s government imposed retaliatory levies on certain U.S. goods — but it carved out exemptions for some automakers to bring specific numbers of vehicles into the country, known as remission quotas.Trump’s tariffs have especially hurt Canada’s auto sector, much of which is based in Ontario. This month, Stellantis said it would move a production line from Ontario to Illinois

    WASHINGTON —

    President Donald Trump said late Thursday that he was ending “all trade negotiations” with Canada because of a television ad opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and called “egregious behavior” aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.

    The post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs. Trump’s call for an abrupt end to negotiations could further inflame trade tensions that already have been building between the two neighboring countries for months.

    Related video above: Earlier this month, Trump explained why a deal with Canada is complicated

    Trump posted, “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.”

    “The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

    Carney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The prime minister was set to leave Friday morning for a summit in Asia, while Trump is set to do the same Friday evening.

    Earlier Thursday night, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted on X that an ad created by the government of Ontario “misrepresents the ‘Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade’ dated April 25, 1987.” It added that Ontario did not receive foundation permission “to use and edit the remarks.”

    The foundation said it is “reviewing legal options in this matter” and invited the public to watch the unedited video of Reagan’s address.

    Carney met with Trump earlier this month to try to ease trade tensions, as the two countries and Mexico prepare for a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a trade deal Trump negotiated in his first term, but has since soured on.

    More than three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the U.S., and nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border daily.

    Trump said earlier this week that he had seen the ad on television and said that it showed that his tariffs were having an impact.

    “I saw an ad last night from Canada. If I was Canada, I’d take that same ad also,” he said then.

    In his own post on X last week, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, posted a link to the ad and the message: “It’s official: Ontario’s new advertising campaign in the U.S. has launched.”

    He continued, “Using every tool we have, we’ll never stop making the case against American tariffs on Canada. The way to prosperity is by working together.”

    A spokesperson for Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. But Ford previously got Trump’s attention with an electricity surcharge to U.S. states. Trump responded by doubling steel and aluminum tariffs.

    The president has moved to impose steep U.S. tariffs on many goods from Canada. In April, Canada’s government imposed retaliatory levies on certain U.S. goods — but it carved out exemptions for some automakers to bring specific numbers of vehicles into the country, known as remission quotas.

    Trump’s tariffs have especially hurt Canada’s auto sector, much of which is based in Ontario. This month, Stellantis said it would move a production line from Ontario to Illinois

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  • California chess superstar Daniel Naroditsky, a grandmaster at 17, has died at age 29

    Alan Kirshner, a youth chess tournament organizer and political science professor, had for years been evasive when asked if he’d ever seen a chess “prodigy.”

    That changed when he first saw San Mateo’s Daniel Naroditsky, then a first-grader, in action.

    “It was apparent from the way he concentrated and was focused, but was relaxed at the same time,” said Kirshner, a retired Ohlone College of Fremont political science and history professor. “I ran to his dad, grabbed him by the arm and said, ‘He is a prodigy.’”

    The youngster proved Kirshner prophetic. He ultimately rose to the level of chess grandmaster — the highest ranking possible — while authoring a series of strategy books and eventually appealing to a new generation of chess enthusiasts through social media.

    Naroditsky’s star unexpectedly dimmed Monday as his death was announced by the Charlotte Chess Center, where the 29-year-old had worked as a coach.

    “Let us remember Daniel for his passion and love for the game of chess, and for the joy and inspiration he brought to us all every day,” the North Carolina center posted on social media.

    The center added: “Daniel was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator and a cherished member of the chess community, admired and respected by fans and players around the world. He was also a loving son and brother, and a loyal friend to many.”

    No cause of death was given by the center, nor were funeral arrangements announced.

    Naroditsky was born in San Mateo and competed throughout the Bay Area as a youngster.

    Although he impressed Kirshner as a first-grader, it was four years later when Naroditsky won the 32nd annual CalChess Scholastic competition high school bracket as a fifth-grader. The tournament is the equivalent of the Northern California championships.

    Kirshner wrote in a recap of the event that Naroditsky was the youngest champion at that high-school-level competition in tournament history.

    Fortunately for Naroditsky’s competitors, he was too young to represent Northern California in the Denker Tournament of state high school champions later that year, which was reserved for high schoolers only.

    Naroditsky had bigger goals, though.

    In December, he employed a chess tactic known as the “Sicilian Defense” to defeat Russia’s Ivan Bukavshin in the final round of a two-hour match for the Under-12 World Youth Chess Championship in Antalya, Turkey.

    The following year, Naroditsky enrolled in sixth grade at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Belmont, Calif., and attended school there for two years.

    After a year off, he re-enrolled in the local high school as a 10th-grader in 2011.

    The school posted a 2011 update from Naroditsky’s brother, Alan, who noted Daniel had earned the international master title, the second-highest honor in the chess world.

    A year earlier, the 14-year-old Naroditsky published his first chess strategy book, “Mastering Positional Chess.” In 2015, he added a second book, “Mastering Complex Endgames: Practical Lessons on Critical Ideas & Plans.”

    Naroditsky enjoyed a banner 2013 that included winning the U.S. Junior Chess Championship in June, while earning the coveted title of grandmaster in July.

    In 2019, Naroditsky graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in history.

    Shortly after his graduation, he began to post chess strategy videos on YouTube and other platforms, including Twitch. He gained 500,000 YouTube followers.

    His final, hourlong video, posted Friday, was entitled, “You thought I was gone! Speedrun returns!”

    “I’ve been sort of taking kind of a creative break, deciding future avenues of content,” Naroditsky said. “So, I won’t delve too much into it right now because I know everyone is excited about some chess game.”

    Crystal Springs school official Kelly Sortino said the campus was “deeply saddened by the passing.”

    “During his years at Crystal, Daniel was known not only for his extraordinary intellect and chess mastery, but also for his warmth, humility, and kindness,” Sortino wrote in an emailed statement. “Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones, as well as to all who were inspired by his talent and character. His loss is felt deeply within the Crystal community.”

    Andrew J. Campa

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  • Commentary: At Trump’s Justice Department, partisan pugnacity where honor, integrity should be

    On Saturday, a home belonging to a South Carolina Circuit judge burned to the ground. Three people, including the judge’s husband and son, were hospitalized with serious injuries.

    The cause of the fire was not immediately clear. An investigation is underway.

    Obviously, the harm and destruction were terrible things. But what turned that particular tragedy into something more frightful and ominous is the fact the judge had been targeted with death threats, after ruling against the Trump administration in a lawsuit involving the state’s voter files.

    Last month, the judge, Diane Goodstein, temporarily blocked South Carolina from releasing data to the U.S. Department of Retribution, er, Justice, which is turning over tables in search of “facts” to bolster President Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election.

    Among those who criticized the decision, which was reversed by South Carolina’s Supreme Court, was Harmeet Dhillon, the San Francisco attorney who now heads the Justice Department’s beleaguered Civil Rights Division.

    Here’s a short quiz. Using professional norms and human decency as your guide, can you guess what Dhillon did in the aftermath of the fire?

    A) Publicly consoled Goodstein and said the Justice Department would throw its full weight behind an urgent investigation into the fire.

    B) Drew herself up in righteous anger and issued a ringing statement that denounced political violence, whatever its form, whether perpetrated by those on the left, right or center.

    C) Took to social media to troll a political adversary who raised concerns about the targeting of judges and incendiary rhetoric emanating from the Trump administration.

    If you selected anything other than “C,” you obviously aren’t familiar with Dhillon. Or perhaps you’ve spent the last many months in a coma, or cut off from the world in the frozen tundra of Antarctica.

    The cause of the fire could very well turn out to be something unfortunate and distinctly nonpolitical. Faulty wiring, say, or an unattended pot left on the stove. South Carolina’s top law enforcement official said a preliminary inquiry had so far turned up no evidence that the fire was deliberately set.

    What matters, however, is Dhillon’s response.

    Not as someone with a shred of sympathy, or as a dogged and scrupulous seeker of truth and justice. But as a fists-up political combatant.

    The timing of the blaze, the threats Goodstein received and the country’s hair-trigger political atmosphere all offered more than a little reason for pause and reflection. At the least, Goodstein’s loss and the suffering of her husband and child called for compassion.

    Dhillon, however, is a someone who reacted to the 2022 hammer attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband not with concern but rather cruel and baseless conspiracy claims.

    By then, Dhillon — a critic of Trump before he won the 2016 Republican nomination — had shape-shifted into one of his most vocal backers, a regular mouthpiece on Fox News and other right-wing media. Her pandering paid off with her appointment to the Justice Department, where Dhillon is supposed to be protecting the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans — not just those in Trump’s good graces.

    There’s plenty of tit-for-tat going around in today’s sulfurous climate. Indeed, the jabbing of fingers and laying of blame have become something of a national pastime.

    The administration asserts left-wing radicals are responsible for the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and a sniper attack on the ICE field office in Dallas. Those on the left blame Trump and his venomous vassal, Stephen Miller, for the incineration of Goodstein’s home.

    When Neera Tanden, a liberal think-tank leader and prolific presence on social media, suggested there might be a connection between the blaze and Miller’s hate-filled rhetoric, Dhillon responded like a juvenile in a flame war. “Clown … grow up, girl,” Dhillon wrote on X.

    When a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed a finger at Dhillon and her criticism of the South Carolina judge, Dhillon seized on some over-the-top responses and called in the U.S. Marshals Service. “We will tolerate no such threats by woke idiots, including those who work for @GavinNewsom,” Dhillon said.

    All around, a sad display of more haste than good judgment.

    That said, there is a huge difference between a press staffer getting his jollies on social media and the assistant attorney general of the United States playing politics with personal calamity.

    And, really, doesn’t Dhillon have better things to do — and better ways of earning her pay — than constantly curating her social media feed, like a mean girl obsessing over likes and followers?

    Worse, though, than such puerile behavior is what Dhillon embodies: an us-vs.-them attitude that permeates the administration and treats those who didn’t vote for Trump — which is more than half the country — as a target.

    It’s evident in the talk of shuttering “Democrat” agencies, as if federal programs serve only members of one party. It’s manifest in the federal militarization of Democratic-run cities and the cutting off of funding to blue states, but not red ones, during the current government shutdown.

    It’s revealed in the briefings — on military plans, on operations during the shutdown — given to Republican lawmakers but denied to Democrats serving on Capitol Hill.

    Dhillon is just one cog in Trump’s malevolent, weaponization of Washington. But her reflexively partisan response to the razing of Judge Goodstein’s home is telling.

    When the person in charge of the nation’s civil rights enforcement can’t muster even a modicum of civility, we’re living in some very dark times indeed.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Teen’s claim he was nabbed, shot by ‘Hispanic’ men sparked outrage. It was a hoax, police say

    The text was every parent’s worst nightmare: A 17-year-old said he had been abducted, shot and wounded by a group of men on a Florida highway.

    Law enforcement scrambled to the scene. A statewide alert went out to locate the boy. After it became known that the teen had said his abductors were “Hispanic,” an outpouring of outrage followed online.

    But none of it was true, authorities now say.

    In a text to his mother last week, the teen — identified as Caden Speight — claimed he had been shot and abducted by four Latino men on Highway 484 in Dunnellon in Marion County, Fla.

    The claim prompted authorities to issue a statewide Amber Alert and sparked furor against Latinos on social media.

    “It’s time to act, no more words,” one user wrote on X, tagging President Trump. “Unleash the hounds of hell.”

    Another shared a drawing of a stick-figure family — the males clad in sombreros — with the caption, “Big or small, deport them all.”

    On Sept. 25, deputies from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office arrived near Highway 484 and found Caden’s vehicle, but the teen was nowhere to be seen and his cellphone had been discarded, according to a news release from the agency.

    The report triggered further investigation.

    Caden was eventually found in Williston, Fla., authorities said, and his tale of abduction unraveled under closer scrutiny.

    Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said in a video statement Monday that detectives have collected evidence showing “the initial details that Caden texted to his family, were proven to be false — completely made up.”

    “We did find evidence of a single gunshot where Caden left his truck,” Woods said. “However, his claims that he had been shot and abducted were quickly disproven. We then learned that he had purchased a bicycle, tent and camping supplies just prior to him reporting this.”

    Caden bought a red-and-gray tent from a Walmart in Ocala, Fla., before he reported that he had been shot and abducted, Woods said.

    “Caden simply rode away towards Williston while the rest of us were left to think the worst and my team was working in overdrive to solve this case,” Woods said.

    The teen had a handgun with him and shot himself in the leg before he was found, authorities said.

    Woods alleged Caden did this to “continue the ruse,” adding that authorities believe, “There is zero chance that Caden’s gunshot wound came from any type of an assailant.”

    Woods said it wasn’t “off the table” that the teen might face criminal charges. The investigation is ongoing and detectives have questions for Caden, he added, but his parents haven’t allowed investigators to speak with him.

    The update from law enforcement triggered a fresh wave of social media commentary, ranging from condemnations to calls for patience and unity.

    “The fact that he tried to make it about four Hispanic men abducting him and not caring that that could have caused some real harm to innocent men that [were] doing nothing wrong in itself is despicable,” one Facebook user wrote.

    “I think we just need to all be supportive and an actual community and not act all crazy and jumping to conclusions,” another said. “A lot of people make things up. All we have to do is pray.”

    Summer Lin

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  • Legal experts say Trump’s indictment of Comey is a test of justice

    WASHINGTON — On a Phoenix tarmac in 2016, former President Clinton and U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch had a serendipitous meeting on a private jet. The exchange caused a political firestorm. At a time when the Justice Department was investigating Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, the appearance of impropriety prompted a national scandal.

    “Lynch made law enforcement decisions for political purposes,” Donald Trump, her Republican rival that year, would later write of the meeting on Twitter. “Totally illegal!”

    It was the beginning of a pattern from Trump claiming political interference by Democrats and career public servants in Justice Department matters, regardless of the evidence.

    Now, Trump’s years-long claim that it was his opponents who politicized the justice system has become the basis for the most aggressive spree of political prosecutions in modern American history.

    “What Trump is doing now with the U.S. attorneys is really in complete opposition to how the people who created those offices imagined what those officials would do — the Founders simply did not envision the office in this way,” said Peter Kastor, chair of the history department at Washington University in St. Louis.

    “From the inception of the Justice Department,” he added, “one of the most remarkable things is how it was never used in this way.”

    On Thursday, at Trump’s express direction, federal charges were filed against James Comey, the former FBI director, alleging he gave false testimony before Congress and attempted to obstruct a congressional proceeding five years ago.

    The indictment was secured from a federal grand jury after Trump fired a U.S. attorney with doubts about the strength of the case — replacing him with a loyalist, and telling Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi openly on social media to pursue charges against him and others.

    “JAMES COMEY IS A DIRTY COP,” Trump wrote on social media after the charges were filed. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017, denies the charges.

    “My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,” Comey said in a statement posted online. “We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either.

    “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice. But I have great confidence in the federal judicial system,” Comey continued. “And I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.”

    Behind the charges against Comey, legal experts see a weak case wielded as a cudgel in a political persecution of Trump’s perceived enemy. Comey is accused of lying about authorizing a leak to the media about an FBI investigation through an anonymous source.

    It is only the latest example. Over the summer, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, used his position to accuse three of the president’s political foes of mortgage fraud, referring the cases to the Justice Department for potential charges — actions actively encouraged by Trump online.

    “It’s not a list,” Trump said Thursday, asked whether more prosecutions are coming. “I think there will be others. They’re corrupt. These were corrupt radical left Democrats. Comey essentially was Dem — he’s worse than a Democrat.”

    The president’s overt use of the Justice Department as a partisan tool threatens a new era of political persecutions that could well backfire on his own allies. The Supreme Court has made clear that presidents enjoy broad immunity for their actions while in office. But their aides do not. Bondi, Pulte and others, just like Comey, are obligated to provide occasional testimony to House and Senate committees under oath.

    “The Comey indictment is notable for its personalized politicization being so open,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College. “The same actions carried out clandestinely would seem scandalous, because they are — and the fact they were so blatantly advertised does not make them less corrupt.”

    But the Comey case can also be seen as a test of the viability of a prosecution based purely on politics. Already, lawyers for Trump’s other legal targets have said they plan on using his overt threats against them to get cases against their clients thrown out in court.

    This week, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, defended Trump’s vocal advocacy for criminal charges against political foes as a matter of “accountability.”

    “We are not going to tolerate gaslighting from anyone in the media, from anyone on the other side who is trying to say that it’s the president who is weaponizing the DOJ,” Leavitt said.

    “You look at people like [California Sen.] Adam Schiff, and like James Comey, and like [New York Atty. Gen.] Letitia James, who the president is rightfully frustrated with,” she continued. “He wants accountability for these corrupt fraudsters who abused their power, who abused their oath of office to target the former president.”

    But Trump’s accusations against Democrats have routinely failed the tests of inspectors general, journalistic inquiry and public scrutiny.

    When Trump was investigated over potential coordination between his campaign and the Russian government in the 2016 race, he claimed a liberal, “deep state” cabal was behind an inquiry based on, as the special prosecutor’s report concluded, “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.”

    And when charged with federal crimes over his handling of highly classified material, and his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, he dismissed the charges as a witch hunt choreographed by President Biden and his attorney general, a claim that had no basis in fact.

    The special counsel investigations against Trump, Kastor said, were “prosecutions, not persecutions.”

    “His claims that the investigations surrounding him are specious — the investigations were appropriate,” Kastor added. “These investigations are not.”

    Michael Wilner

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  • ‘I’m not afraid’: Former FBI director responds after being indicted

    This indictment filed overnight does not specifically mention the Russia investigation, but it does accuse Comey of making *** false statement and obstructing *** congressional proceeding. Comey’s accused of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the investigation into Russia meddling with the 2016 election and whether he authorized *** leak to the press. Now timing is everything. Last week, the chief prosecutor who worked in the same office that filed the case against Comey resigned after President Trump pressured him to bring charges against the New York attorney General. Social media post, the president asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to do something about Comey. The president then nominated US Attorney Lindsay Halligan, former personal attorney to the president. Halligan quickly moved forward to present the Comey case to *** grand jury shortly after charges were filed. Comey responded, My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have *** trial. And keep the faith. Overnight, President Trump posted on social media saying that Comey has been bad for the country and is being held responsible for his crimes against the nation. If Comey is convicted, he faces up to 5 years in prison at the White House. I’m Rachel Horzheimer.

    ‘I’m not afraid’: Former FBI Director responds to indictment

    Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for allegedly lying to Congress about the Russia investigation, prompting a response from Comey expressing confidence in the judicial system.

    Updated: 7:52 AM EDT Sep 26, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for allegedly making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding related to his testimony in 2020 about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.The indictment, filed Thursday night, does not specifically mention the Russia investigation but outlines charges against Comey for lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the investigation and whether he authorized a leak to the press. Last week, Erik Siebert, the chief prosecutor who worked in the same office that filed the case against Comey, resigned after President Donald Trump pressured him to bring charges against the New York attorney general, Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.In a social media post, the president asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to do something about Comey, James, and Trump’s other political enemies, writing to Bondi, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” President Trump then nominated U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney to the president, who quickly moved forward to present the Comey case to a grand jury.Halligan rushed to present the case to a grand jury because prosecutors had until Tuesday to bring a case before the five-year statute of limitations expired.Shortly after the charges were filed, Comey responded in a video posted on his social media, saying, “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.” Overnight, President Trump posted on social media, calling Comey “one of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to” and saying Comey is “being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation.”Trump continued by posting early Friday morning, “JAMES COMEY IS A DIRTY COP.”If convicted, Comey faces up to five years in prison.Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:

    WASHINGTON —

    Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for allegedly making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding related to his testimony in 2020 about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

    The indictment, filed Thursday night, does not specifically mention the Russia investigation but outlines charges against Comey for lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the investigation and whether he authorized a leak to the press.

    Last week, Erik Siebert, the chief prosecutor who worked in the same office that filed the case against Comey, resigned after President Donald Trump pressured him to bring charges against the New York attorney general, Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.

    In a social media post, the president asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to do something about Comey, James, and Trump’s other political enemies, writing to Bondi, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” President Trump then nominated U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney to the president, who quickly moved forward to present the Comey case to a grand jury.

    Halligan rushed to present the case to a grand jury because prosecutors had until Tuesday to bring a case before the five-year statute of limitations expired.

    Shortly after the charges were filed, Comey responded in a video posted on his social media, saying, “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.”

    Overnight, President Trump posted on social media, calling Comey “one of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to” and saying Comey is “being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation.”

    Trump continued by posting early Friday morning, “JAMES COMEY IS A DIRTY COP.”

    If convicted, Comey faces up to five years in prison.

    Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:


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  • Did Joshua Tree’s Invisible House charge $10,000 for a selfie? Here’s what the owner says

    A $10,000 selfie has captured headlines.

    In a series of now-viral videos posted to TikTok, entrepreneur Sean Davis alleged that a luxury short-term rental in Joshua Tree sent him the five-figure bill after someone in his party took a photo in the bathroom and tagged a brand on social media. Tabloids ran with the tale.

    But it’s not exactly true, according to the owners of the mirror-walled monolith that’s known as the Invisible House. They say they charged Davis production fees after he was caught staging an unpermitted photoshoot for his clothing company on the trademarked property back in June of 2021.

    “His intention was to shoot some stuff there and he thought he could get around calling it a production,” said owner Chris Hanley, a film producer whose credits include cult classics “American Psycho” and “The Virgin Suicides.” He spoke by phone from another architectural property he owns on Lamu Island in Kenya.

    Davis said he was surprised his videos generated so much attention, given his modest following. The co-founder of John Geiger clothing and footwear said he reserved the Invisible House for a company retreat but had hoped to make the most of the booking by also shooting content in the surrounding environs.

    During his stay, Davis and three others — a business partner, a photographer and a model — walked away from the home into what they thought was open desert to take photos. They didn’t realize the house sits on 90 acres and unpermitted commercial activity is forbidden anywhere on the property, he said.

    “If you’re respecting the house, why is it a problem if you go use the desert to shoot content with four people and a camera?” Davis said. “It’s not like it’s a huge production.”

    That’s the crux of the dispute: Was it a few innocent photos or an unauthorized production?

    Hanley and his wife Roberta, a screenwriter and director, built the Invisible House in 2019. Part abode, part modern art installation, it has been featured in Architectural Digest and served as the backdrop for more than 100 productions, including campaigns for Hermes and BMW, Hanley said, noting that famed photographer Annie Leibovitz has shot there for Vogue. Some of those shoots have also taken place outside the home — the natural landscape of the property is its own unique work of art, he said.

    The home can be reserved as a short-term rental for roughly $3,000 a night or it can be booked for commercial activity for about $1,000 an hour plus additional costs associated with film permits and site management, Hanley said. Commercial activity also requires paperwork allowing a brand to use the property’s copyrights and trademarks, he said.

    “Everyone knows that you’re not allowed to just shoot there,” Roberta Hanley said. “The house is copyrighted as a visual — the whole place, the whole concept.”

    Although Davis booked the property through a short-term rental platform, security cameras captured him conducting a photoshoot outside, the Hanleys said. He also brought a drone into the house without permits or a licensed pilot, which could have caused damage, they said.

    And while Davis said in his videos that he was billed $10,000 for the accommodations and another $10,000 in fees associated with the photoshoot, the Hanleys provided documents stating he was charged $9,000 in total — $3,000 for the booking, $2,500 in a forfeited security deposit and $3,500 upon signing a separation agreement and release of claims.

    The Hanleys also took issue with Davis’ claim that a selfie triggered the charges. “I’ve had clients call me up saying, ‘you’re not gonna charge me $10,000 if I take a selfie, are you?’ and it’s like ‘What?’ ” Chris Hanley said. “I mean, if you’re just taking a photo of yourself and not promoting a product, that’s fine.”

    But according to Davis, the rental’s management company only checked security footage at the house and realized he’d taken pictures for his brand after a friend’s girlfriend uploaded a photo of her outfit to social media and tagged a different clothing brand. That brand then reposted the content and tagged the Invisible House, he said.

    Davis said he respects the Hanleys and their “sick” home. He also questioned the precise difference between someone posting content to their personal social media account and promoting a brand, saying that it’s become difficult to know where to draw the line. “Most people rent places for content now,” he said, adding that he’s taken photos in and around other short-term rentals without issue.

    But the Hanleys said the rules governing the use of their property are made clear to guests both before and upon booking. And Davis is a good example of why they charge for commercial activity, they said, pointing out that his TikTok account has a couple hundred followers but a post on the controversy received 1.5 million views.

    “It’s impressive, the explosion of excitement he was able to get for himself,” Roberta Hanley said.

    “Maybe we should collaborate on Invisible House sneakers,” her husband quipped.

    Alex Wigglesworth

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