Two sisters of a former YouTuber who gave online parenting advice said they “did as much as they could” to protect her children before she was arrested on suspicion of aggravated child abuse.
Ruby Franke, whose now-defunct 8 Passengers channel followed her family, was arrested on Wednesday in Utah and taken into custody.
Franke’s 12-year-old son had climbed out of a window in the city of Ivins and ran to a neighbour’s house on Wednesday morning before asking for food and water, according to an affidavit filed by an officer with the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department.
According to the document, the neighbour saw duct tape on the boy’s ankles and wrists and called law enforcement.
The boy was taken to a hospital, where he was put on a medical hold “due to his deep lacerations from being tied up with rope and from his malnourishment,” arrest records show.
Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was later found malnourished and was also taken to the hospital, officers said. Two other of Franke’s children were in the custody of child protection services, the affidavit said.
Franke was arrested alongside her business partner and collaborator, Jodi Hildebrandt, who is the founder of the controversial life counselling organisation ConneXions Classroom. The two women create advice videos that critics say promote a harsh style of parenting.
‘We did as much as we could’
After her arrest, Franke’s sisters have said they are “all on the same page” about their sibling and are glad that the children are now safe.
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In a now-deleted YouTube video titled ‘My statement on my sister Ruby Franke’, Bonnie Hoellein, who is also a social media personality, said “we all did as much as we could, legally,” when speaking about protecting her niece and nephews.
“For the last three years, we have truly clung on to each other and offering support to one another, and I don’t think any of us could’ve seen this coming.
“I know that timing is everything, and I know that they will be taken care of. I know the kids will be OK and that our family will be OK.”
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The day before Ms Hoellein posted on YouTube, Ellie Mecham, another of Franke’s sisters, said in a statement that they had done “everything we could to try and make sure the kids were safe”.
Posting on Instagram, where she has over 500,000 followers, Ms Mecham said the family had kept quiet on the subject of their sister for the last three years, “for the sake of the children”.
On Thursday, a judge denied Franke bail after a detective cited “the severity of the injuries of her two kids located in the home,” and told the judge the Department of Child and Family Services had taken four of Franke’s children into custody with the officer yet to speak to two of them.
Image: Ivins, Utah. Pic: AP
Who is Ruby Franke?
Franke and her husband launched their family YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, in early 2015. The channel chronicled the lives of the parents and their six children and had nearly 2.3 million subscribers.
As many family channels on YouTube do, 8 Passengers focused on parenting style, the children’s upbringing and discipline as the kids grew up in Utah. The parents, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (known as the Mormon Church), also shared their children’s home-schooling.
Although the Frankes grew a sizable following, the family became the subject of harsh criticisms in recent years.
Mature, developed economies like the UK and US became ever more reliant on cheap imports from China and, in the process, saw their manufacturing sectors shrink.
Large swathes of the rust belt in the US – and much of the Midlands and North of England – were hollowed out.
And to some extent that’s where the story of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” really began – with the notion that free trade and globalisation had a darker side, a side he wants to remedy via tariffs.
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He imposed a set of tariffs in his first term, some on China, some on specific materials like steel and aluminium. But the height and the breadth of those tariffs were as nothing compared with the ones we have just heard about.
Not since the 1930s has the US so radically increased the level of tariffs on all nations across the world. Back then, those tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression.
It’s anyone’s guess as to what the consequences of these ones will be. But there will be consequences.
Consequences for the nature of globalisation, consequences for the US economy (tariffs are exceptionally inflationary), consequences for geopolitics.
Image: Imports from the UK will face a 10% tariff, while EU goods will see 20% rates. Pic: Reuters
And to some extent, merely knowing that little bit more about the White House’s plans will deliver a bit of relief to financial markets, which have fretted for months about the imposition of tariffs. That uncertainty recently reached unprecedented levels.
But don’t for a moment assume that this saga is over. Nothing of the sort. In the coming days, we will learn more – more about the nuts and bolts of these policies, more about the retaliatory measures coming from other countries.
We will, possibly, get more of a sense about whether some countries – including the UK – will enjoy reprieves from the tariffs.
To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the trade war, or even the beginning of the end – perhaps just the end of the beginning.
Actors, directors and celebrity friends have paid tribute to Val Kilmer, after he died aged 65.
The California-born star of Top Gun, Batman and Heat died of pneumonia on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told the Associated Press.
She said Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered.
Tributes flooded in after reports broke of the actor’s death, with No Country For Old Men star Josh Brolin among the first to share their memories.
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Watch: Val Kilmer in his most iconic roles
He wrote on Instagram: “See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you. You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those.
“I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts.”
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Kyle Maclachlan, who co-starred with Kilmer in the 1991 biopic The Doors, wrote on social media: “You’ll always be my Jim. See you on the other side my friend.”
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Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer in 1995’s Heat, also paid tribute in a statement, saying: “I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.
“After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
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Heat co-star Danny Trejo also called Kilmer “a great actor, a wonderful person, and a dear friend of mine” on Instagram.
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Cher, who once dated the actor, said on X that “U Were Funny, crazy, pain in the ass, GREAT FRIEND… BRILLIANT as Mark Twain, BRAVE here during ur sickness”.
Lifelong friend and director of Twixt, Francis Ford Coppola said: “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life.
“He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know – I will always remember him.”
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The Top Gun account on X also said it was remembering Kilmer, who starred as Iceman in both the 1986 original and 2022 sequel, and “whose indelible cinematic mark spanned genres and generations”.
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Elon Musk has called reports that he will leave his government role in the coming months “fake news”.
A senior White House official previously told NBC News, Sky’s US partner network, that Donald Trump had discussed the Tesla and X boss transitioning back to the private sector at a cabinet meeting last month.
Image: The Tesla boss has headed DOGE since 20 January. File pic: Reuters
After reports emerged of the meeting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “garbage” and added: “Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.”
Mr Musk added in response on X: “Yeah, fake news.”
NBC News reported that the official said Mr Musk would leave at the end of his 130 days as a special government employee.
That would be 30 May, but it is unclear if the billionaire businessman will indeed leave on that date.
Previously, the White House said that as a temporary organisation, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would be terminated on 4 July next year – the 250th anniversary of the US.
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It comes days after Mr Musk said some members of his DOGE team were getting death threats on a daily basis.
Mr Muskhad drawn criticism over his efforts to downsize the US federal government.
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‘Elon Musk has got to go’
In just weeks, entire agencies were dismantled, and tens of thousands of workers from the 2.3 million federal workforce have been fired or have agreed to leave their jobs.
A number of lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts over cuts recommended by DOGE.