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Key Points Meta and a coalition of state attorneys general have settled a major federal case centering on allegations that the social media giant misrepresented the extent of child-related mental health harms caused by apps like Facebook and Instagram. The case, brought by a group of 29 states, was co-led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the AGs from Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky. As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to pay a maximum of $16.7 billion.

Tiny East Texas Town of Under 1,000 Implodes Over Dirty Water Cover-Up, Retaliatory Arrests, Fired Judge, Mass Resignations, and 15 Years of “Bad Policing” The Henderson County District Attorney and County Attorney have informed the Trinidad, Texas Police Department that they will no longer accept ANY cases for prosecution solely investigated or filed by the department until further notice. The letter, obtained by local media, effectively neuters the Trinidad PD’s ability to bring meaningful criminal cases. The Henderson County Sheriff’s Office will now handle crimes inside city limits. Pending cases will be reviewed one by one. The prosecutors themselves requested...

Meta has been ordered to pay $567 million into a New Mexico abatement fund after a judge found the company’s platforms contributed to the youth mental health crisis in the state, marking another major blow to Big Tech in a growing wave of child safety litigation. The order, reported by CNBC, follows an earlier finding that Meta willfully violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act. The company had already been hit with $375 million in civil penalties earlier this year. The new $567 million abatement fund brings the total price tag in the case to nearly $1 billion. Judge Bryan Biedscheid...

Days after Donald Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, thousands flocked to the streets of New York City to demonstrate against the president elect in a protest organized by a Kremlin-connected Facebook page called BlackMattersUS, The Hill reports. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people attended the protest organized by the Facebook page, which, according to an archived screen grab, had more than 99,000 likes.“Join us in the streets! Stop Trump and his bigoted agenda!” the Facebook event page reads for the protest, which was called “Trump is NOT my President. March against Trump.” “Divided is the reason we just fell,” it reads. “We must...

A Mississippi pastor recently ignited a firestorm after reportedly posting the names of church members on Facebook who had failed to pay their tithes. Whether the intention was accountability, encouragement, or frustration, the reaction was swift. Christians from across the theological spectrum condemned the move as public shaming rather than biblical shepherding. The controversy raises a much larger question than one pastor's judgment. It forces Christians to ask an uncomfortable but necessary question: Where is the line between teaching biblical stewardship and manipulating God's people?The Bible has much to say about generosity. Jesus spoke often about money because it reveals...

A planned fight between two women prompted a Tuesday night shooting in Dauphin County that ended in a high-speed chase and collision with a police car, according to court records. Mya Elias, 22, agreed to fight a woman after a Facebook dispute escalated into a fiery exchange of messages on Facebook Messenger. Elias posted screenshots of the messages on her Facebook page Tuesday afternoon, saying the woman had “harassed me twice over (her) bd.” The initials stand for baby’s dad. The woman then posted about the dispute on her Facebook page and provided Elias’ address to commenters. That’s when Elias...

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has announced she and her department are leaving Elon Musk's X platform. Explaining her decision in what seemingly will be her last post on X, Nandy said the platform "isn't healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don't want to support it". "A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate," she wrote. The culture department becomes the second government department to stop using X after the attorney general's office, while several MPs also left the platform earlier this year over reports its AI tool was...

Numerous European Countries have been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies. Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this. Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America. This TARIFF will supersede Trade Deals made with the Country, whether implemented, signed, or not. Additionally, the 100% TARIFF will be immediately imposed, if they proceed. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

BREAKING - The "conservative" protest against AI data centers has an anti-ICE NGO organizer, a DSA member, Facebook money. Other than that, totally grassroots. Axios ran an "exclusive" Wednesday about a "conservative group" called Humans First planning a nationwide day of protest against AI data centers on July 18. Amy Kremer is chairing it and invoking the Tea Party. Axios didn't mention that Humans First was incubated by the Center for AI Safety, an organization funded with millions from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. Or that its original staff included a Sunrise Movement organizer who sat in at Pelosi's office with...

A heroic Indiana mother was killed when she stepped in between her son and an 18-year-old gunman who had pulled a firearm on them during a Facebook marketplace sale. Jean Gragg, 40, and her teenage son were selling a watch to prospective buyer John Ford during an arranged meet-up on the front porch of their Edison Park, Ind . . Ford allegedly fired multiple shots at Gragg, who was walking up her driveway back to her home as her horrified family watched.

A Texas Department of Criminal Justice parole supervisor has been fired after posting vile anti-white racist comments on social media in response to the conviction of Karmelo Anthony for the murder of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf. Donna Murray Robinson, who was a TDCJ Parole Supervisor working with the Board of Pardons and Parole, posted on Facebook shortly after Anthony’s conviction and sentencing earlier this week. In the post, she expressed no sympathy for the Metcalf family and called for white people to start “burying their own kids.” “I am a Parole Supervisor at TX DCJ,” Robinson began. “Karmelo will be ok...

Facebook has lost its global reach at 945am today.

The Brief A judge who approved a search warrant that led to the arrest of a Henderson County resident over a Facebook post concerning Trinidad's water supply says he was misled by the Trinidad Police Department. Judge R. Scott McKee sent a letter to outgoing Trinidad Police Chief Charles Gregory that questions "the accuracy, completeness, and reliability of information presented" by his officers when he approved the warrant. The woman arrested has since filed a lawsuit against the city after her charges were dropped, while the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is investigating the city's water supply. SNIP

Jennifer Combs says she never set out to become the face of a fight over free speech, dirty water and small-town power. She says she was simply trying to help people in Trinidad, Texas, report problems with their water. Some residents had complained about discoloration, sediment, odors and health concerns. So Combs used her Southern Belle Watch Facebook page to collect reports and send them to the state. Then, according to Combs, the situation took a turn that still sounds hard to believe. She says police came to her home and arrested her on a felony warrant over a Facebook...

The transgender Laramie resident who staged a protest at the state Capitol last summer of Wyoming’s new cross-sex access ban for public restrooms is now waging a self-defense argument in a felony aggravated assault case. Rihanna Kelver, 26, made headlines last summer for using the women’s bathroom in the Wyoming Capitol when a new state law activated banning the practice. The ban doesn’t allow for penalties against a transgender person using the women’s bathroom, but allows females aggrieved by that event to sue the state for letting it happen. About two months later, Kelver was involved in an altercation with...

A leaked audio recording reveals Zuckerberg's real explanation for why Meta was tracking its workers. You've heard of "learn by doing." Meta invented "learn by watching employees do it, then replace them." A leaked audio recording from a Meta all-hands meeting, obtained by More Perfect Union, captures Mark Zuckerberg explaining that Meta has been monitoring employee activity across Gmail, GChat, internal tool Metamate, and VSCode (the coding software most engineers use) to train its AI models. His reasoning: the AI "learns from watching really smart people do things," and elite engineers make better training subjects than outside contractors. Which is,...

A Tennessee man who was jailed for more than a month after refusing to take down a Facebook meme poking fun at the assassination of Charlie Kirk will be paid $850,000 as part of a settlement with officials. Larry Bushart, a 61-year-old retired police officer, spent 37 days behind bars under a $2 million bond before authorities dropped the felony charge against him in October. While in jail, he lost his post-retirement job and missed both his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter, according to a federal lawsuit Bushart filed against Perry County, Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems...

She was “praying to Poseidon” that she’d get laid off. But on Wednesday morning, as thousands of her Meta colleagues found out they’d lost their jobs, the app designer was disappointed to find she still had hers. She’s now one of just two survivors on her team, left behind to navigate Meta’s shift to AI. “Thinking about what the company will be like after the layoffs depresses me more than thinking about getting laid off,” she said, asking for anonymity. “Nobody wants to stick around for that.” Hundreds of Meta employees in the Bay Area woke up early Wednesday to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the company after it suspended his accounts following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to three people familiar with the matter.