A Virginia hospital fired a nurse after she encouraged other medical professionals to inject ICE officers with succinylcholine, a drug that temporarily paralyzes muscles, in an effort to &#8220;sabotage&#8221; them.
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health said it opened an investigation after the nurse posted a series of TikTok videos and ultimately terminated her employment. In one of the videos, she urged doctors and nurses to “grab some syringes with needles on the end” and fill them with &#8220;saline or succinylcholine,&#8221; adding, &#8220;Whatever. Whatever,” and claiming it would “probably be a deterrent.”
&#8220;Following an investigation, the individual involved in the social media videos is no longer employed by VCU Health. In addition, VCU Health has fulfilled its reporting requirements under Virginia state law,&#8221; the hospital said in a statement Tuesday.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Meet Melinda, a healthcare worker at <a href="https://twitter.com/VCUHealth?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VCUHealth</a>. She posted a series of videos encouraging people to inject ICE agents with succinylocholine, a temporary paralysis drug, and spray poison on them. She also encourages woman to go on dates with agents and drug their food.
Any… <a href="https://t.co/CMJN12GhOc">pic.twitter.com/CMJN12GhOc</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2015941489516245223?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The woman, who went by the handle Redheadredemption, posted another video in which she appeared in scrubs and encouraged viewers to use poison ivy-soaked water in a water gun to shoot ICE officers in the face.
She also called on single women to meet up with ICE agents on dating apps and spike their drinks with laxatives.
“All the single ladies where these ICE guys are going have a chance to do something, not without risk, but could help the cause for sure. Get on Tinder, get on Hinge, find these guys, they’re around,” she said.
“If they’re an ICE agent, bring some ex-lax and put it in their drinks, get ’em sick. Nobody’s gonna die, it’s just enough to incapacitate them and get them off the street for the next day.”
“Highly easily deniable, you could get sick, too. Won’t eat there again. I’m just sayin’, let’s get ’em where they eat, somebody’s not gonna be supporting these guys, where’s the hotel where they eat? Who makes their breakfast? Let’s find them.”
“Let’s make their lives f*cking miserable.”
She also encouraged hotel staff to hide “dead fish” in ICE officers’ rooms.
The woman&#8217;s posts come as ICE agents face an 8,000% increase in death threats and a more than 1,300% surge in assaults.

Screenshot 2026-01-27 at 4.02.32 PM

Virginia Hospital Fires Nurse Who Urged Colleagues To Inject ICE Agents With Paralytic Drug

Crime

hospital

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Minneapolis

TikTok

WASHINGTON—Shortly after President Donald Trump&#8217;s second term began, Vice President JD Vance was given a job: figure out how to fulfill the president&#8217;s promise to save TikTok.
That deal was reached late last week, but work started a year ago when the vice president convened a series of &#8220;late night meetings&#8221; to dissect the unique challenges of convincing ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the social media network, to sell to an American company. Congress passed a law during the Biden administration to ban TikTok unless it was sold to an American company, but Trump delayed enforcement as his team worked towards a deal to avert it.
Alex Bruesewitz, the trusted Trump advisor and X Strategies CEO, explained that Vance&#8217;s history in Silicon Valley, tech literacy, and rolodex in the business world made him the obvious choice to spearhead the initiative.
&#8220;The president trusted him with that because the president knows that not only is JD a capable politician, but he also has tremendous business acumen,&#8221; Bruesewitz said. &#8220;He knows a lot of the guys who were involved, and so, it was very easy for the president to task JD with this, and JD didn&#8217;t disappoint.&#8221;
Vance&#8217;s role in the deal was &#8220;crucial&#8221; from the very beginning, Bruesewitz said, noting that though there were some concerns about the platform, they were addressed and ironed out in the new deal. Vance was a major part of that.
&#8220;Like the president, the vice president understood the importance of making sure that TikTok stayed alive,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s such an incredible platform to reach the youth in our country. It&#8217;s also an incredible platform for small businesses in our country, and it&#8217;s actually the most pro-Trump platform out there.&#8221;
Vance&#8217;s negotiating tactics included pushing Google and Apple to put TikTok back into their app stores, and speaking regularly with ByteDance, TikTok&#8217;s Chinese parent company. He kept Trump looped in on all those ongoing conversations, &#8220;including the importance of securing a deal that would first and foremost address our national security and data privacy concerns,&#8221; according to Bruesewitz.
Throughout the spring of 2025, the vice president was working to firm up a deal — and that deal was ready to be signed, The Daily Wire has learned, until China backed out of it due to the Liberation Day tariffs. Vance kept pushing for the deal, negotiating with investors and ByteDance throughout the summer. In August, he began pushing for more direct engagement with China.
By September, Vance was leading the planning for a meeting in Madrid between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Chinese officials, and Vance&#8217;s own counsel, which &#8220;played a significant role directly negotiating the final terms on behalf of Vance.&#8221; Both Vance and Trump joined some of those negotiating meetings over the phone, and threatened China with &#8220;serious consequences&#8221; if the deal was not made by the end of the Madrid trip.
<div id="attachment_1034305" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/news/how-jd-vance-helped-donald-trump-to-save-tiktok/president-trump-signs-order-on-tiktoks-us-operations-3" rel="attachment wp-att-1034305"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1034305" class="wp-image-1034305 size-large" src="https://drwordpress.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/GettyImages-2237013328-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2237013328-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2237013328-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2237013328-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2237013328.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
The deal was closed by the end of the trip. Vance, according to a source familiar, &#8220;opened the door&#8221; for Trump to close the deal. And Trump signed an executive order advancing the TikTok deal on September 25, 2025.
Under the terms of that new deal, TikTok US will be owned and operated by an entity that is majority United States-owned and United States-based. ByteDance now owns less than 20% of TikTok, as is required by United States law.
&#8220;[TikTok United States Data Security] Joint Venture&#8217;s mandate is to secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,&#8221; TikTok <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/announcement-from-the-new-tiktok-usds-joint-venture-llc?lang=en">said in a release</a>. &#8220;It will safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem through robust trust and safety policies and content moderation while ensuring continuous accountability through transparency reporting and third-party certifications.&#8221;
TikTok US has three managing investors: the tech giant Oracle, investment firm MGX, and private equity firm Silver Lake, which each own 15% stakes. Other investors include Dell Family Office, Vastmere Strategic Investments, Alpha Wave Partners, Revolution, Merritt Way, LLC, and Via Nova.
Trump described these entities as &#8220;a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World,&#8221; noting that TikTok &#8220;will be an important Voice&#8221; in a Truth Social post late last week. He specifically thanked Vance for helping to bring about the deal and it&#8217;s &#8220;very dramatic, final, and beautiful conclusion.&#8221;
“Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Vice President Vance, the Administration has successfully made good on yet another campaign promise and saved TikTok for its hundreds of millions of American users,&#8221; a spokesman for the vice president told The Daily Wire. &#8220;With this new entity under the control of U.S. investors, Americans can continue to enjoy TikTok safely and securely with their data protected in the United States.&#8221;
Bruesewitz pointed to internal analysis <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/us/politics/trump-biden-tiktok.html">conducted in 2024,</a> when President Joe Biden was still in the race for the 2024 election, which found that Trump was far more popular than Biden on the platform: the analysis found almost twice as many pro-Trump posts on TikTok as pro-Biden ones.
That&#8217;s a point that Trump has repeatedly emphasized, suggesting that TikTok was responsible for his performance &#8220;with the Youth Vote in the 2024 Presidential Election.&#8221;
&#8220;I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok,&#8221; the president said last week.
Democrats who used to support the app, despite Republican concerns about national security issues, flipped on TikTok once they realized how much pro-Trump sentiment was being shared on the app, Bruesewitz said.
&#8220;That&#8217;s when the Democrats switch happened,&#8221; Bruesewitz added. &#8220;The Democrats used to want to protect TikTok and then they said, OK, we want to ban it, when they realized that they weren&#8217;t very popular on that platform with the youth.&#8221;

US-POLITICS-VANCE

How Trump’s Team Got The TikTok Deal Done

Donald Trump

J.D. Vance

A Virginia nurse was seen in a series of now-deleted TikTok videos sharing ways for medical professionals to &#8220;sabotage&#8221; ICE agents with syringes full of succinylcholine, which temporarily paralyzes muscles.
The nurse, who went by Redheadredemption on TikTok, encouraged doctors and nurses to &#8220;grab some syringes with needles on the end&#8221; and &#8220;have them full of saline or succinylcholine, you know, whatever. Whatever,&#8221; adding &#8220;that will probably be a deterrent. Be safe.&#8221;
In another video, she was seen dressed in scrubs while calling on others to soak poison ivy in water and to put the solution into water guns to shoot at ICE agents&#8217; faces.
She also shared in a separate post a call for single women to find ICE agents on dating apps and then put laxatives in their drinks on dates.
&#8220;All the single ladies where these ICE guys are going have a chance to do something, not without risk, but could help the cause for sure. Get on Tinder, get on Hinge, find these guys, they&#8217;re around,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;If they&#8217;re an ICE agent, bring some ex-lax and put it in their drinks, get &#8217;em sick. Nobody&#8217;s gonna die, it&#8217;s just enough to incapacitate them and get them off the street for the next day.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Meet Melinda, a healthcare worker at <a href="https://twitter.com/VCUHealth?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VCUHealth</a>. She posted a series of videos encouraging people to inject ICE agents with succinylocholine, a temporary paralysis drug, and spray poison on them. She also encourages woman to go on dates with agents and drug their food.
Any… <a href="https://t.co/CMJN12GhOc">pic.twitter.com/CMJN12GhOc</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2015941489516245223?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2026</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Highly easily deniable, you could get sick, too. Won&#8217;t eat there again. I&#8217;m just sayin&#8217;, let&#8217;s get &#8217;em where they eat, somebody&#8217;s not gonna be supporting these guys, where&#8217;s the hotel where they eat? Who makes their breakfast? Let&#8217;s find them.&#8221;
&#8220;Let&#8217;s make their lives f*cking miserable.&#8221;
At one point, she also urged hotel employees to hide &#8220;dead fish&#8221; in ICE agents&#8217; hotel rooms.
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health, the woman&#8217;s employer, and the VCU Police have opened an investigation into the posts, Fox News reported Tuesday.
&#8220;We prioritize the health and safety of anyone who comes to us for care. We are aware of a series of videos that appear to have been posted by an individual confirmed to be an employee of our health system,&#8221; VCU told Fox News Digital in a statement. &#8220;The content of the videos is highly inappropriate and does not reflect the integrity or values of our health system.&#8221;
&#8220;VCU Police are assisting with this investigation,&#8221; the university continued. &#8220;Per policy, while the investigation is underway, the individual is on administrative leave and will not be in our facilities or interacting with patients.&#8221;

Virginia Nurse Urges Medical Professionals To Inject ICE Agents With Paralyzing Drug

Hospitals

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

U.S.

Three of the world&#8217;s largest social media platforms are heading to court on Tuesday as they defend themselves in a bellwether social media addiction case.
The California Superior Court in Los Angeles County is set to hear the case, which alleges that Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have contributed to the growing problem of social media addiction and the mental health issues that stem from it. TikTok and Snapchat were also sued in the case, but settled with the plaintiff before the trial began. 
Jury selection for the trial begins on Tuesday, with opening arguments scheduled for next week. The case is part of a coordinated effort across the country that includes hundreds of similar cases where litigants accuse social media giants of fueling addiction.
In the case before the California Superior Court, a 19-year-old woman, referred to as K.G.M., argues that social media platforms have knowingly designed their platforms to get children and young users addicted. Studies have shown that social media features such as autoplay and infinite scroll induce a dopamine hit, which can lead to users spending hours on platforms each day.
K.G.M.&#8217;s social media addiction <a href="https://www.carriermanagement.com/news/2025/10/21/280613.htm">resulted</a> in crippling depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts, according to the lawsuit. K.G.M.&#8217;s case is just the first of many that are expected to trial this year, targeting Snapchat, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, which is owned by Google. Snapchat settled with K.G.M., but it remains a defendant in numerous other social media cases that are set to go before state and federal courts.
YouTube told The Daily Wire that the allegations it faces in the cases “are simply not true.”
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” said YouTube spokesman José Castañeda. “In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”
The Daily Wire also reached out to Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat told The Daily Wire that it was &#8220;pleased&#8221; to have settled the K.G.M. case in &#8220;an amicable manner.&#8221;
The K.G.M trial will likely put Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the witness stand, where he will have to answer questions in front of a jury. Meta’s lawyers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/meta-tiktok-youtube-stand-trial-youth-addiction-claims-2026-01-26/">told</a> Reuters that the social media giant will argue before the court that its platform did not lead to K.G.M’s mental health issues. YouTube said it will argue that its platform is different from those of the other defendants and shouldn&#8217;t be considered in the same case as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
The California Superior Court trial could shape public opinion on social media platforms moving forward as the companies face more trials, including one in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which is set to begin on June 12. The lawsuit before the federal court was filed by school districts, which argue that social media addiction fueled by social media companies “not only harms individual children and their loved ones but also causes substantial and financially burdensome interference with school district, county, and municipal operations.”
In recent years, Meta has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ig-introduces-teen-accounts-with-built-in-privacy-settings-to-better-support-parents">rolled out</a> online safety features for children using Instagram. The platform&#8217;s &#8220;Teen Accounts&#8221; keep children&#8217;s accounts private, meaning other Instagram users cannot see posts from or contact a Teen Account unless the teenager accepts their follow requests. Instagram also censors content on Teen Accounts, so that children are not shown content that features fighting or cosmetic procedures.
TikTok, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/support/faq_detail?id=7543604789335071238&amp;category=web_account">created</a> &#8220;a separate TikTok experience specifically designed&#8221; for kids under 13 years old. The &#8220;TikTok Under 13 Experience&#8221; curates content that is more appropriate for young children, makes all accounts private, and limits screen time to one hour. YouTube also has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_us/kids/safer-experience/">kids version</a> of the platform that is &#8220;designed to be a safer and simpler place for kids to explore their interests through online video.&#8221; YouTube requires videos uploaded on YouTube Kids to be &#8220;family-friendly.&#8221;
The effects of social media on children has become a hot topic in recent years, and the issue gained more attention after the book, &#8220;The Anxious Generation,&#8221; by Jonathan Haidt was published in 2024. In the book, Haidt, a social psychologist, argues that anxiety and depression skyrocketed in the past 15 years, coinciding with what he calls the &#8220;great rewiring of childhood,&#8221; which is the flip from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood.
The social media addiction case in California comes as some countries move to ban social media for children. Last month, Australia became the first nation in the world to ban social media for kids under 16. Malaysia has introduced a similar social media ban, and Utah passed a law in 2024 requiring social media platforms to verify a users&#8217; age and obtain parental consent, but parts of the law were temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
This article was updated after TikTok settled with K.G.M. shortly before the trial started.

Social media

Bellwether Social Media Addiction Trial Puts Instagram, Facebook, And YouTube In The Crosshairs

Courts

Instagram

Snapchat

Social Media

YouTube

Chinese tech giant ByteDance has reached a deal over ownership of TikTok for the social media platform to stay active in the United States.
TikTok <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/announcement-from-the-new-tiktok-usds-joint-venture-llc?lang=en">announced</a> the deal on Thursday evening after a six-year campaign to ban the app under Chinese ownership from the United States. Congress passed legislation over a year ago that could have spelled the end of TikTok in the United States, but President Donald Trump postponed the ban from going into effect beyond the bill’s stated grace period to reach a deal.
Since 2019, a conglomeration of people and entities have sought legal action against TikTok, while a bipartisan group of lawmakers has sought an outright ban over concerns that the platform was being used by China to steal from and spy on Americans.
The effort to ban TikTok was resisted by social media influencers who have used the platform to further their careers, as well as Trump, who prioritized negotiating with ByteDance to sell off the platform to allow it to continue to operate in the United States.
Under the terms of the deal, a new U.S. version of the app will be created, which will be 80% owned by international investors.
TikTok’s Thursday statement listed the new group of international owners. The largest owners outside of ByteDance itself are the software giant Oracle, the Emirati investment firm MGX, and U.S.-based investment firm Silver Lake. ByteDance will retain 19.9% ownership of the U.S. version of the platform while the other big three will each have 15%.
“Completing the full consortium of investors are: Dell Family Office, the investment firm of Michael Dell, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies; Vastmere Strategic Investments, LLC, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group, LLP; Alpha Wave Partners; Revolution; Merritt Way, LLC controlled and managed by partners of Dragoneer; Via Nova, an affiliate of General Atlantic; Virgo LI, Inc., investment arm of a foundation established by Yuri and Julia Milner in support of science; and NJJ Capital, the family office of Xavier Niel, a French entrepreneur and pioneer in telecommunications,” the statement from TikTok explained.
Oracle will become the manager of all U.S. user data on the platform.
“TikTok USDS Joint Venture&#8217;s mandate is to secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures. It will safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem through robust trust and safety policies and content moderation while ensuring continuous accountability through transparency reporting and third-party certifications,” the announcement stated.

TikTok Strikes Deal To Stay Active In U.S., Ending Years-Long Battle Over Chinese Ownership

Big Tech

China

Communist China

United States

World

The Department of Justice failed to foolproof some of the redactions made to the Epstein files, leading to some unredacted versions of documents appearing online.
Some people have <a href="https://x.com/flyosity/status/2003487819587821613">discovered</a> that the redactions, which the Justice Department says have been made to protect victims, can be undone or worked around through Photoshop or by simply copying and pasting the text to a new document. Unredacted versions of some documents began to appear online after the department released a fresh tranche of an estimated 30,000 more pages.
In one redacted file, the blacked-out portion pertains to how the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and his associates allegedly obtained young victims for sexual abuse, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/23/epstein-unredacted-files-social-media">The Guardian</a>.
“Between September 2015 and June 2019, Indyke signed (FAC) for over $400,000 made payable to young female models and actresses, including a former Russian model who received over $380,000 through monthly payments of $8,333 made over a period of more than three and a half years until the middle of 2019,” says one redacted portion from a civil case in the Virgin Islands.
Other sections from the civil case detail how Epstein himself paid off or threatened victims to keep them from speaking to authorities.
“Defendants also attempted to conceal their criminal sex trafficking and abuse, conduct by paying large sums of money to participant-witnesses, including by paying for their attorneys’ fees and case costs in litigation related to this conduct,” one file says.
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“Epstein also threatened harm to victims and helped release damaging stories about them to damage their credibility when they tried to go public with their stories of being trafficked and sexually abused. Epstein also instructed one or more Epstein Enterprise participant-witnesses to destroy evidence relevant to ongoing court proceedings involving Defendants’ criminal sex trafficking and abuse conduct,” it continues.
The Justice Department announced its latest batch of Epstein file releases on Tuesday. The release of the files, mandated under the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed last month, has sparked more controversy as the records have revealed photos of famous acquaintances of Epstein, such as former president Bill Clinton, around the disgraced financier.
President Donald Trump has also appeared at times in the files. The president has long maintained innocence in Epstein’s schemes, and none of the files released have suggested that Trump was involved in alleged misconduct.

US-POLITICS-JUSTICE-EPSTEIN

The DOJ Tried To Redact The Epstein Docs. TikTok Found A Workaround.

Department of Justice

Jeffrey Epstein

Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook and Instagram after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to unredacted filings in a class action by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms.
In a 2020 research project code-named “Project Mercury,” Meta scientists worked with survey firm Nielsen to gauge the effect of “deactivating” Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta documents obtained via discovery. To the company’s disappointment, “people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison,” internal documents said.
Rather than publishing those findings or pursuing additional research, the filing states, Meta called off further work and internally declared that the negative study findings were tainted by the “existing media narrative” around the company.
Privately, however, staff assured Nick Clegg, Meta’s then-head of global public policy, that the conclusions of the research were valid.
“The Nielsen study does show causal impact on social comparison,” (unhappy face emoji), an unnamed staff researcher allegedly wrote. Another staffer worried that keeping quiet about negative findings would be akin to the tobacco industry “doing research and knowing cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves.”
Despite Meta’s own work documenting a causal link between its products and negative mental health effects, the filing alleges, Meta told Congress that it had no ability to quantify whether its products were harmful to teenage girls.
In a statement Saturday, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the study was stopped because its methodology was flawed and that it worked diligently to improve the safety of its products.
“The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens,” he said.
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The allegation of Meta burying evidence of social media harms is just one of many in a late Friday filing by Motley Rice, a law firm suing Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat on behalf of school districts around the country. Broadly, the plaintiffs argue the companies have intentionally hidden the internally recognized risks of their products from users, parents and teachers.
TikTok, Google and Snapchat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Allegations against Meta and its rivals include tacitly encouraging children below the age of 13 to use their platforms, failing to address child sexual abuse content and seeking to expand the use of social media products by teenagers while they were at school. The plaintiffs also allege that the platforms attempted to pay child-focused organizations to defend the safety of their products in public.
In one instance, TikTok sponsored the National PTA and then internally boasted about its ability to influence the child-focused organization. Per the filing, TikTok officials said the PTA would “do whatever we want going forward in the fall… (t)hey’ll announce things publicly(,), (t)heir CEO will do press statements for us.”
By and large, however, the allegations against the other social media platforms are less detailed than those against Meta. The internal documents cited by the plaintiffs allege:
1. Meta intentionally designed its youth safety features to be ineffective and rarely used, and blocked testing of safety features that it feared might be harmful to growth. 2. Meta required users to be caught 17 times attempting to traffic people for sex before it would remove them from its platform, which a document described as “a very, very, very high strike threshold.&#8221; 3. Meta recognized that optimizing its products to increase teen engagement resulted in serving them more harmful content, but did so anyway. 4. Meta stalled internal efforts to prevent child predators from contacting minors for years due to growth concerns, and pressured safety staff to circulate arguments justifying its decision not to act. 5. In a text message in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg said that he wouldn’t say that child safety was his top concern “when I have a number of other areas I’m more focused on like building the metaverse.” Zuckerberg also shot down or ignored requests by Clegg to better fund child safety work.
Meta’s Stone disputed these allegations, saying the company’s teen safety measures are effective and that the company’s current policy is to remove accounts as soon as they are flagged for sex trafficking.
He said the suit misrepresents its efforts to build safety features for teens and parents, and called its safety work “broadly effective.”
&#8220;We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions,” Stone said.
The underlying Meta documents cited in the filing are not public, and Meta is opposing their unsealing.
A hearing regarding the filing is set for January 26 in Northern California District Court.
(Reporting by Jeff Horwitz in San Francisco; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

FILE PHOTO: Illustration shows Meta logo

Meta Buried ‘Causal’ Evidence Of Social Media Harm, U.S. Court Filings Allege

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave an optimistic update on the fate of the TikTok deal on Sunday, saying that a framework of a deal has been reached.
“We reached a final deal on TikTok, we reached one in Madrid. I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea,” Bessent said during an appearance on Face The Nation.
“Has China agreed to give up control of the algorithm that determines what users see?” host Margaret Brennan asked Bessent, noting President Trump’s September executive order on TikTok. Bessent wouldn’t give details on what the final deal will look like.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A deal on the future of TikTok is set to be finalized, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, telling <a href="https://twitter.com/margbrennan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@margbrennan</a> a final deal was reached during U.S.-China talks last month in Madrid.
“I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two… <a href="https://t.co/psJNoiGYRN">pic.twitter.com/psJNoiGYRN</a>
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1982458297786462593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The discussions to reach a deal with China on the massively popular ByteDance-owned social media platform TikTok have been ongoing since before Trump took office.
Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, he <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5268701/trump-executive-order-tiktok-ban">postponed</a> the law signed by former President Joe Biden in April 2024 that would force ByteDance to divest or have TikTok banned in the United States. As recently as September, the president further <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/further-extending-the-tiktok-enforcement-delay-9dde/">extended</a> the enforcement delay to provide time for an agreement to be reached with China.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-tiktok-will-be-american-operated-all-the-way-under-new-deal?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Says+TikTok+Will+Be+%E2%80%98American-Operated+All+The+Way%E2%80%99+Under+New+Deal">said</a> as he signed the executive order. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
According to the text of the executive order, the framework resolves the national security concerns by removing “the TikTok application and certain other applications from the ‘control’ of a foreign adversary and precludes any ‘operational relationship’ between a formerly affiliated entity controlled by a foreign adversary and the new joint venture.”
It also “prohibits the storage of sensitive United States user data in a manner that would place such data under the control of a foreign adversary and requires such data to be stored in a cloud environment run by an American company.”
Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.

President Trump Signs Executive Order In The Oval Office

Bessent Says ‘Final Deal On TikTok’ Has Been Reached, Trump And Xi Will ‘Consummate’ It In Korea

Global Politics

Technology

Xi Jinping

Persecution reaches a fever pitch in the “Christian Murder Capital” of the world, Russia ratchets up its saber-rattling with a nuclear drill, and an illegal immigrant honored by the City of Los Angeles allegedly rams an ICE vehicle.
It’s Thursday, October 23, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Christian Genocide You Probably Haven’t Heard Of</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-990063" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Christian-Murder-Capital.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Christian genocide ongoing in Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives this year alone, but human rights advocates say the Nigerian government has turned a blind eye.
In the first nine months of this year, advocacy groups estimate that more than 7,000 Christians have been killed across Nigeria, many in attacks that leave entire communities burned to the ground.
For more than a decade, this pattern of violence has gone largely unnoticed. But American lawmakers — including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) — are calling for Nigeria to be reclassified as a “country of particular concern” for religious persecution.
“Many in the media share the same woke mindset that they will not call out radical Islamic terrorism for what it is, especially when it&#8217;s Christians who are the victims. And so it takes the rest of us to highlight this needs to end,” Cruz told Morning Wire.
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Judd Saul is the founder of Equipping the Persecuted, a group that has been on the ground trying to minister to Nigerian Christians. He said the crisis has been building for decades as radical Muslim groups have been taking control of the area.
“What they have done is they move in, they populate, and once they gain population, they start taking political control. And once they gain political control, the killing starts,” Saul told Morning Wire.
These deaths often occur among women, children, and the elderly who can’t easily flee their small villages.
Why the silence: One of Saul’s biggest frustrations is how little the world knows about the ongoing genocide. The Nigerian government effectively controls what gets reported. Western outlets too often repeat official denials without sending reporters to see the devastation themselves.
“The mainstream media never shows up. They just take the government’s word for it, and every time Christians are killed, it’s always ‘unknown gunmen.’ But we know who’s doing it,” Saul said.
Now footage is emerging of burned churches, mass graves, and displaced families living under tarps in camps with no food or medicine.
Response from Washington: Cruz introduced legislation this month: the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025. It will impose sanctions on Nigerian officials accused of facilitating violence against Christians and other religious minorities.
Response from Nigeria: Nigerian officials continue to deny that Christians are being targeted for their faith. They’re framing the violence as clashes between herders and farmers. But many international watchdogs like Open Doors and International Christian Concern say that’s false.
Saul says the Nigerian military has repeatedly failed to respond to warnings of attacks. It’s because of this inaction that many Nigerian Christians are calling on the United States government to use its international influence to shine a spotlight on these atrocities.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Push For Peace In Ukraine</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-990061" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Peace-Summit-Axed.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: President Trump canceled a second summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and hours later, a fresh barrage of Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine.
Moscow doesn’t appear to want to end the war. It recently launched another major missile and drone attack on Ukraine that killed seven people – part of Russia&#8217;s campaign to knock out Ukraine’s energy supplies ahead of winter.
According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-lifts-key-restriction-on-ukraines-use-of-western-long-range-missiles-5a15c12d?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqdQ8iMn0Xl6WlTrEflM-qAdv5sTUs7vuBvNZqNHOO44yer9ClOXnPh5RoBrwOw%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68f9bcbf&amp;gaa_sig=bR0aCbBe-iAb62JlmwUtP7EmQ0bOUlbyBoNFYlO5isMUbFBJT0FTYJFJG1PtWOXrVgGcUK2uNDoFNFO31R14WQ%3D%3D">The Wall Street Journal</a>, the United States has given Ukraine the green light to launch its own attacks inside Russian territory. Trump has <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115419686256202789">denied</a> that report, but on Tuesday, Ukraine used a British Storm Shadow cruise missile to hit a plant in Bryansk, Russia.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also announced on Wednesday a “substantial pickup” in sanctions against Russia.
The exchange in missile attacks came as Trump backed out of a second peace summit with Putin. It was supposed to be held in Budapest, Hungary. The White House canceled the summit after a phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Trump said Tuesday he <a href="https://x.com/Osint613/status/1980741977000821245">canceled</a> the summit because he did not “want to have a wasted meeting.”
Foreign policy experts <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/10/22/russia-does-not-feel-enough-pressure-ukraine-bombarded-over-2-deadly-nights-as-trump-sours-on-meeting-with-putin/">say</a> this was a necessary move by Trump, recognizing that Putin does not feel enough pressure for peace talks to be productive.
Ceasefire deal?: Trump said this week that the battle lines should be frozen where they are as a precondition to peace talks. Europe has backed that position, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I think that was [a] good compromise, but I’m not sure that Putin will support it,” Zelensky told reporters after landing in Oslo.
The Ukrainian president has continued to press his case for Tomahawk missiles after his meeting at the White House last week. Zelensky said in a <a href="https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1980683702448386417">post</a> on X that “Russia continues to do everything to weasel out” of a ceasefire, and “as soon as the issue of long-range capabilities for Ukraine became less immediate, [Moscow’s] interest in diplomacy faded. This signals that deep strike capabilities may hold the key to peace.”
Israel: Vice President JD Vance paid a visit to Israel this week, primarily signaling the Trump administration’s commitment to holding together the ceasefire and moving forward with Trump’s 20-point peace plan. While there, Vance recognized some of the limits of the current situation.
“You basically have two regions in Gaza, one of which is relatively safe – I wouldn&#8217;t say very safe – and one of which is incredibly dangerous, and part of ensuring that we get to a durable peace is to broaden the scope of the area that&#8217;s safe,” <a href="https://x.com/AdamMilstein/status/1980692659422576716">said</a> Vance. “The international security force is a big part of that. We don&#8217;t yet have the international security force set up. That&#8217;s something we&#8217;re working towards.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Illegal Alien TikToker Nabbed In Los Angeles</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-990059" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Anti-ICE-Activist-Shot.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: An illegal immigrant and well-known TikToker was shot by federal authorities in Los Angeles after he tried to evade arrest for a second time and allegedly rammed a federal vehicle.
The illegal immigrant allegedly behind the attack is Carlitos Ricardo Parías, 44, who is known on TikTok as Richard LA and who regularly exposes ICE operations online to his more than 132,000 followers.
The suspect allegedly tried to impede an ICE operation months ago, but got away. He was seen in handcuffs being hauled into a vehicle by bystanders while federal authorities were trying to arrest him for allegedly interfering with immigration operations, federal law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire.
U.S. Marshals encountered him again this week, arresting him while he attempted to flee a second time. During the attack on ICE agents in which Parías allegedly rammed a federal vehicle, agents responded with gunfire, hitting Parías in the elbow. A U.S. Marshal was wounded by a ricochet bullet that hit him in the hand.
Parías has been charged with assaulting a federal officer, which carries a sentence of up to eight years in prison.
Parías has been considered somewhat of a local hero, being honored by the Los Angeles City Council for his “tireless efforts to safeguard our neighborhoods from illegal raids” in exposing ICE operations on TikTok.
He is being prosecuted aggressively by U.S. attorneys in part because federal officials get so little support in deep blue, sanctuary areas that protect illegal aliens.
New York City riot over deportations: Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday raided New York City’s Canal Street, notorious for illegal immigrant crime, as a mob of rioters attempted to stop them.
Law enforcement arrested illegal aliens of African origin, each with a lengthy rap sheet. Five of the aliens entered the United States illegally and were let go under former President Joe Biden.
The raid on Canal Street came after Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez exposed African immigrants selling counterfeit designer handbags along the sidewalk. The aliens would take off running wherever the police showed up.
Sanctuary policies have protected the illegal immigrants, as well as facilitated their illicit activities on Canal Street, according to federal officials.

MRN_251023_V1

Morning Brief: Nigerian Christians Slaughtered, Russia Standoff, & Illegal Alien TikToker Nabbed

Christianity

genocide

Los Angeles

Media

Nigeria

Politics

Russia

Ted Cruz

Ukraine

Vladimir Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky

A Taylor Swift fan who accused the singer of selling a necklace with allegedly blatant Nazi symbolism has gone viral with her claims.
Also, the item has disappeared from Swift’s <a href="https://store.taylorswift.com/">merchandise site</a>, though it’s unclear if this was due to the accusations or because it sold out. Reps for Swift did not immediately return a request for comment on the controversy.
User sampire1513, whose profile describes her as “the friend that’s too woke” and “happily gay married,” posted a video detailing all the symbolism she saw on the necklace being sold on Swift’s merchandise website. The jewelry piece was meant to go along with the song “Opalite” from the singer’s newest “The Life of a Showgirl” album.
The video has gone viral on multiple social media platforms, earning 5.4 million views on TikTok and a ton of supportive comments.
The TikTok creator opened by mentioning the reception to the song “Opalite,” which she said has “racial undertones.”
“I am in the business of  listening to black women. I think they would know what a microaggression sounds like against them way better than I ever could,” sampire1513 began.
She said after seeing the necklace, she has decided that the song “Opalite” is “completely intentionally racial. And I am sick.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The fact this have 400k likes proves our society is DOOMED <a href="https://t.co/LM0U06mfQy">pic.twitter.com/LM0U06mfQy</a>
— Leo (@Swiftsbeatle13) <a href="https://twitter.com/Swiftsbeatle13/status/1978575424427847890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
The TikTok creator goes on to describe how the necklace has lightning bolts, but insists that the way these lightning bolts are designed is meant to represent something specific while acknowledging that the lyrics say, “dancing through the lightning strikes.”
“They are specifically SS lightning bolts,” sampire1513 continues. “Okay? It is not ambiguous. That is exactly what it is.”
She goes on with the conspiracy accusations.
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“And then, if you&#8217;ll look, there are eight of them,” the TikTok user says. “Why does that matter? Because H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. Many Nazi, neo Nazi circles, gangs, will put an 88, meaning [Heil] Hitler, they&#8217;ll put it in their bios, they&#8217;ll tattoo it on their bodies, they&#8217;ll put it on their motorcycles, their leather jackets … I&#8217;m not reaching … the 88 thing is extremely common.”
Sampire1513 goes on to claim that the cross on the necklace is a “f***ing iron cross,” a German military medal.
The social media creator said after seeing the necklace, there are only two options.
“Number one, Swift&#8217;s team and Swift herself, they put this out, and they genuinely just didn&#8217;t know what they were doing. And it&#8217;s a complete happenstance that it resembles any commonly used Nazi dog whistles,” she said, noting that for this to happen, there would have to be no one on the team who is Jewish or who went through “cultural sensitivity training.”
“&#8230;Option number two, which is, she knows exactly what this is, and that’s what she decided to put out. What the f***,” the user said.
Sampire1513 demanded that Swift put out a statement condemning Nazism and hatred. “I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m reaching at all,” she said in conclusion of the necklace’s alleged symbolism. “I think it&#8217;s clear as f***ing day.”
The user set her TikTok account to private Thursday as the video continued gaining traction online. X users called her out for the allegations.
“That’s some unhinged stuff right there. As someone who studied the 3rd Reich for many years at university &#8211; no, they don’t look like SS lighting bolts, those look like the last 2 letters in KISS. That looks NOTHING like the Iron Cross,” one commenter <a href="https://x.com/Davidwebrooks/status/1978750769584087290">wrote</a>.
“If you see a [lightning] bolt and think nazi i think there&#8217;s only one person obsessed with nazis and it aint taylor swift,” another person <a href="https://x.com/Swiftsbeatle13/status/1978575424427847890">said</a>.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift Fan Accuses Singer Of Selling Nazi-Themed Necklace In Viral TikTok

Celebrities

Entertainment

Music

Nazis

viral video

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at ensuring TikTok becomes “American-operated all the way,” he said.
After months of delaying the enforcement of a law banning TikTok, Trump announced a new framework facilitated by his executive order, which would transfer ownership of the social media platform from China to a group of American investors. Congress passed a law in 2024 to either ban the Chinese-owned TikTok or force its sale due to national security and privacy concerns.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said as he signed the executive order. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
Trump thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for agreeing to the deal. He said some of the investors in the project included Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, entrepreneur Michael Dell, and Rupert Murdoch.
Vice President JD Vance played a key role in negotiating the framework. He said that the deal would allow Americans to use TikTok “with more confidence than they had in the past because their data is going to be secure, and it’s not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens.”
Vance said that TikTok was valued at around $14 billion and that more details about the specific investors would be revealed in the coming days.
According to the text of the executive order, the framework resolves the national security concerns by removing “the TikTok application and certain other applications from the ‘control’ of a foreign adversary and precludes any ‘operational relationship’ between a formerly affiliated entity controlled by a foreign adversary and the new joint venture.”
It also “prohibits the storage of sensitive United States user data in a manner that would place such data under the control of a foreign adversary and requires such data to be stored in a cloud environment run by an American company.”
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld the law banning TikTok, ruling that it did not violate the First Amendment for Congress to prohibit the application due to national security concerns.

President Trump Signs Order On TikTok’s US Operations

Trump Says TikTok Will Be ‘American-Operated All The Way’ Under New Deal

JD Vance

National Security

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping&#8217;s progress on a TikTok deal this week could help bolster talks to allow parent ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of the short video app, experts said.
The move forward, albeit a small one, comes eight months after a legal deadline passed for Chinese ownership of TikTok in the United States to end, and follows lengthy discussions about a sale.
Trump said on Truth Social on Friday that he appreciated &#8220;the approval of the TikTok Deal&#8221; from Xi, after a call between the leaders of the world&#8217;s two biggest economies.
Xi&#8217;s statement did not mention an approval. It said &#8220;the Chinese government respects the will of firms and welcomes companies to conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules to reach a solution consistent with Chinese laws and regulations while balancing interests,&#8221; according to the meeting summary in Xinhua state media.
China blocked a similar agreement on the app used by 170 million Americans in April during a trade dispute.
&#8220;Readouts from Washington and Beijing suggest the call between Trump and Xi went well, with words like &#8216;positive&#8217; and &#8216;constructive&#8217; being used by both sides to characterize the important bilateral conversation,&#8221; said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. &#8220;While the leaders apparently blessed the TikTok deal, important details surrounding such matters as who would own and control the algorithm remain unclear.&#8221;
Either way, months of work, at the very least, lie ahead. Trump this week extended the deadline to complete the divestiture to December 19. And lawmakers have raised concerns about reported details on the preliminary framework agreement reached earlier in the week in Madrid.
Congress had ordered the app shut down for U.S. users by January 2025 if its U.S. assets were not sold by Chinese owner ByteDance.
Trump has declined to enforce the law while his administration looks for a new owner, which Democrats say is illegal. He has said he is worried a ban on the app would anger TikTok&#8217;s huge user base and disrupt political communications. He has largely downplayed national security concerns that motivated Congress to demand a Chinese divestiture.
&#8220;I like TikTok; it helped get me elected,&#8221; Trump said during a press conference on Thursday. &#8220;TikTok has tremendous value. The United States has that value in its hand because we&#8217;re the ones that have to approve it.&#8221;
Scott Kennedy, head of the Chinese Business and Economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, &#8220;the contours of the conversation today and over the last few months better align with China&#8217;s interests than U.S. interests.&#8221;
He added, &#8220;we&#8217;re talking about individual business deals. We&#8217;re not talking about Chinese structural reforms.&#8221;
Key questions about the deal remain. The precise ownership structure of the company is unclear, as is the amount of control China will retain, or whether Congress will approve.
The deal would transfer TikTok&#8217;s U.S. assets to U.S. owners from ByteDance, Reuters has reported. Sources familiar with the deal said U.S. TikTok would still make use of ByteDance&#8217;s algorithm.
That arrangement worries lawmakers concerned that Beijing could spy on Americans or conduct influence operations through the app. China has said there is no evidence of a national security threat posed by the app.
(Reporting by Chris Sanders, David Shepardson and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

TikTok Logo With US Flag

Sale Of TikTok’s U.S. Assets May Get Boost After Recent Trump-Xi Call

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