Neighbours of Ruby Franke, the former YouTuber arrested this week on child abuse charges, say they tried to help her children.
Franke, whose now-defunct 8 Passengers channel followed her family, was arrested on Wednesday in Utah and was taken into custody.
Her 12-year-old son climbed out of a window and ran to a neighbour’s house asking for food and water, according to a court filing by 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 the police.
Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was later found malnourished and was also taken to the hospital.
Speaking to Sky News’s sister outlet NBC News, two of Franke’s neighbours said people in the community had previously alerted child services.
“Everyone is just breathing a collective sigh of relief because we thought they were going to come out of that house with body bags,” a male neighbour said.
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Neighbours accused Franke of withholding food as a punishment for her children – a behaviour that was also shared on her YouTube channel.
They also claimed that, after her husband was out of the home, Franke would leave the house for weeks at a time, with the children inside.
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“I remember that she took away their Christmas one year,” the male neighbour said, “and she would say things like ‘They’re not repenting correctly,’ which is a Mormon term for ‘they’re sinning.’ Just complete insanity.”
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.
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.
‘We did as much as we could’
After her arrest, Franke’s sisters said they are “all on the same page” about their sibling and are glad that the children are now safe.
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.”
An actor who appeared in animated series King Of The Hill and hit show Parks And Recreation has been shot dead near his home.
Jonathan Joss, 59, was found injured by police in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday evening.
Officers tried to save him but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The actor’s husband claimed the gunman shouted “violent homophobic slurs” before opening fire, and that Joss had pushed him out the way to save his life.
“He was murdered by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other,” alleged Tristan Kern de Gonzales on Facebook.
He said the couple had previously faced harassment from neighbours, much of it “openly homophobic”.
Joss’s husband said they had been checking for mail at his old home – which earlier this year burned down in a fire that killed their three dogs – when they noticed the skull of one of the animals in front of the property.
He said they began “yelling and crying” and claimed they were approached by a man who threatened them with a gun.
“We were standing side by side,” said Mr Kern de Gonzales. “When the man fired Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life.”
However, San Antonio police said it had found no evidence that the shooting was a hate crime.
“Should any new evidence come to light, we will charge the suspect accordingly,” said a statement.
A 56-year-old man, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez, has already been charged with murder.
Joss is best known for voicing Native American character John Redcorn in cult show King Of The Hill, which ran for 13 series and more than 250 episodes from 1997 to 2009.
He also had a recurring role in NBC’s Parks And Recreation as tribal elder and casino owner Chief Ken Hotate.
A King Of The Hill reboot is due to start in August and Joss had been in Austin, Texas, for events promoting the comeback the day before he was killed.
He posted a video on Instagram saying he was signing autographs at a comic book store, adding that he had already worked on four episodes of the revival.
“The fans get to revisit King Of the Hill again, which I think is an amazing thing because it’s a great show,” he said in the video.
The suspect is being held in a detention centre in San Antonio, but the lawyer representing him could not be traced as they were not listed in court records.
The family of the man accused of throwing petrol bombs at a pro-Israel group in Colorado have been taken into custody.
Immigration officers detained Mohamed Soliman’s relatives, believed to be his wife and five children.
Soliman, an Egyptian national, moved to the US three years ago and lived in Colorado Springs but was there illegally after his visa and work authorisation expired. He reportedly has two teenage children and three younger children.
“We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” said homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on X.
The attacker allegedly yelled “Free Palestine” and had a total of 18 petrol bombs – but police said he “got scared” and only tossed a couple.
Soliman also had a makeshift flamethrower in the form of gas in a backpack sprayer, according to a FBI statement, but told investigators he did not use it.
Twelve people were injured, authorities said. The victims were aged between 52 and 88 and three of them were still being treated in hospital on Tuesday.
Image: Mohamed Soliman appeared with a bandaged ear in a mugshot. Pic: Boulder Police Dept.
Soliman was allegedly dressed as a gardener to get as close as he could to the small group. Authorities said he told them he had no regrets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Boulder attack was “aimed against peaceful people who wished to express their solidarity with the hostages held by Hamas, simply because they were Jews”.
Elon Musk has criticised US President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, calling it “outrageous” and a “disgusting abomination”.
The bill, which includes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks, was passed by the House Republicans in May, and has been described by the president as a “big, beautiful bill”.
The tech billionaire hit out at the tax cuts on his platform X, writing: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
Image: Elon Musk left his ‘special government employee’ role last week. Pic: AP.
In American politics, “pork” is a political metaphor used when government spending is allocated to local projects, usually to benefit politicians’ constituencies.
The White House brushed Musk’s comments aside, claiming they did not surprise the president.
In a press conference on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill”.
She added: “This is one, big, beautiful bill.
“And he’s sticking to it.”
The White House on Tuesday asked Congress to cut back $9.4bn in already approved spending, taking money away from DOGE.
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What did Musk achieve at DOGE?
The billionaire tweeted: “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!!) and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
He also suggested voting out politicians who advanced the president’s tax bill.
“In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” Musk wrote in another X post.
Questions have also been raised about whether the department has actually saved taxpayers as much money as suggested.
Musk initially had ambitions to slash government spending by $2trn (£1.5trn) – but this was dramatically reduced to $1trn (£750bn) and then to just $150bn (£111bn).
Image: Elon Musk brought his son X Æ A-12 to the Oval Office during a press conference earlier this year. Pic: Reuters.
He recently told The Washington Post: “The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realised. I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC to say the least.”
By law, status as a “special government employee” means he could only serve for a maximum of 130 days, which would have ended around 30 May.