Social media video appears to show escaped New Orleans inmate Antoine Massey pleading case
In the videos posted to Instagram, a person who appears to be Massey speaks directly to the camera and refutes allegations regarding his original arrest and the circumstances surrounding his escape.
Kidnapping suspect wanted in Jefferson, St. Charles parishes
Louisiana State Police officials confirmed that they are aware of the video and issued a statement saying, 'All video and surveillance evidence is part of the ongoing investigation and search for the escaped inmates. We cannot provide additional information that may hinder investigative leads or law enforcement operations.'
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson issued the following statement:
The Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office is aware of a video circulating online that appears to show Antoine Massey, one of two individuals still at large following a recent escape from the Orleans Justice Center.
'If the individual depicted in the video is indeed Antoine Massey, we strongly urge him to come forward and turn himself in to the proper authorities. Cooperating with law enforcement is in his best interest and may help avoid additional charges. It is important that justice is served appropriately and that due process is followed.'
We continue to work closely with local, state, and federal partners to ensure both individuals are safely apprehended. Anyone with information should contact Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111. You can remain anonymous.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson
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Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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WIRED
13 minutes ago
- WIRED
The Tweens Down Under: Life Without Social Media in Australia
Aug 18, 2025 6:00 AM As Australia rolls out a ban on social media for kids under 16, tech companies face steep fines and teens face life without TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms. Will it work? ILLUSTRATION: VIVIENNE SHAO Starting on December 10, many Australian teenagers will no longer be as online as their peers in other countries. The Social Media Minimum Age Bill, passed in 2024, stipulates that a person must be at least 16 years old to have an account on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. Across the world, people young and old are increasingly recognizing the negative impacts that social media has on adolescents. Nearly half of teenagers in the US claim these platforms harm people their age; parents are even more concerned. While several US states have introduced legislation to safeguard kids online, a national ban seems far off. Australia, by contrast, fast-tracked its prohibition: Annabel West, a lawyer and mother in Adelaide, read Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation , and told her husband—South Australia premier Peter Malinauskas—that he had to do something. He proposed legislation in his small state, and it rapidly gained support across the country. A few months later, the social media ban was signed into law, making Australia the first country in the world to make such a move. 'Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field,' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last fall after the national ban was proposed. 'So do I.' The legislation has seen resounding support among Australian parents and legislators. It passed in Parliament with an overwhelming, bipartisan majority; 77 percent of Australians support the ban. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's less popular with tech companies—who may face fines if they can't keep kids off their platforms—and with teenagers themselves. 'At first it seemed like a good idea, but over time, I've become more and more against it,' says Elena Mitrevska, an 18-year-old who lives in Melbourne. 'I honestly think it is removing spaces for connection and community.' More than most teens, Mitrevska has a say in how the social media bill's provisions take shape in real life. She's a member of the eSafety Youth Council, a group of 17 Australians, ages 13 to 24, who advise the country's eSafety office, which will enforce the new legislation when it goes into effect in December. They didn't vote on the bill, but now they have input on how it'll be enacted. (Mitrevska and the other teenagers quoted in this article are expressing their own views, not the views of the eSafety Youth Council or Commissioner.) Like other members of the council, Mitrevska believes that social media can be harmful for young people, especially in terms of addictive design and graphic material shared in online communities. But she worries an outright ban won't get to the root of the problem. 'It seems really disingenuous to me to remove entire online spaces for young people, versus just talking and trying to fix those particular issues,' she says. 'It really feels like an attempt to bury young people's heads in the sand.' Australian regulators disagree. They believe the ban will give adults the chance to teach kids some internet literacy one-on-one before they are fully immersed in social media. The goal is to improve mental health outcomes while putting the onus on tech companies to verify the ages of their users. 'We're aware that delaying children's access to social media accounts won't solve everything but it will introduce some friction in a system that has previously had none,' eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant tells WIRED via email. She emphasized that it's designed to let parents set the ground rules, 'giving them valuable time to help their children develop the resilience, critical thinking and digital literacy they need.' Mitrevska stresses that for many teenagers, social media platforms are where they develop beliefs and community. She has used apps like TikTok and Instagram to find other young people who are politically engaged; it's also been transformative in terms of exploring her own identity. 'I grew up believing a lot of homophobic rhetoric, and the thing that got me out of that spiral was YouTube short films from art colleges,' she says. 'There's no phonebook for finding other gay kids like you, and social media is really great for that.' When the ban passed last year, tech companies warned it could send teens to darker corners of the internet. Facing fines of nearly 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million), they're now figuring out how they'll keep kids under 16 off their platforms. They can ask for government ID, or perhaps use facial scanning technology, but the specific mechanisms each platform will use—and how kids might try to get around them—have yet to be determined. Raghu Vijayan, a 17-year-old from Adelaide on the eSafety Youth Council, believes that the social media bill is a start—although he cautions that a ban alone isn't enough. He also stresses that turning 16 doesn't immediately equip someone with the tools to handle social media, that 'they're going to magically learn how to deal with harmful content,' especially if they've been shielded from it. He believes the law needs to be paired with comprehensive education about social media, tailored by young people, and a social media trial period, like a learner's permit before a driver's license. Vijayan also worries that the ban will discourage young people from reporting dangerous content or experiences online. The bill states that while social media companies will be fined, teenagers won't be prosecuted for accessing platforms, 'but if you're a young person, you probably won't remember that,' he says. That's part of the role of the Youth Council: to help the eSafety Commission structure its regulatory guidance and communicate the law to young people in a way that they'll trust. Vijayan wishes that social media companies would make the changes themselves. 'They've allowed cyber bullying, echo chambers, and harmful content, and they've created a system where image-based abuse is allowed to fester, so we think the onus should be on them to try and design a system to solve it,' he says. 'Then we wouldn't have to ban social media for young people.' For adults, the idea of doing away with social media for young people is appealing. Work like Haidt's The Anxious Generation calls for a return to an earlier time, one where kids made friends by playing outside and sustained relationships in-person. But teenagers know that social media is the water they swim in. 'There's such a big focus on bringing back adolescence and protecting childhood, but removing social media for under-16s isn't going to make being under 16 like it was before social media,' says Mitrevska. 'It's such an integrated part of daily life.' Despite the negative impacts, these platforms are where young people learn and spend their social lives; without investment in alternative spaces, the ban will leave a sizable gap. The members of the Youth Council are focused on how to help 16-year-olds safely navigate social media for the first time. 'I feel personal expertise comes from experience, so if young people are not spending that time in digital spaces, they're going to enter those spaces again much less informed and in a way, much more vulnerable,' says Mitrevska. Like with any pressing issue, the teens are looking for answers on social media and in the group chat.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Photos claiming to show Russian man saving drowning bear in Lake Tahoe tell a different story
Claim: Online photographs show Ivan Stepanov, a Russian tourist, saving a drowning bear beneath the Tallac Bridge in South Lake Tahoe. Rating: A seemingly heartwarming story of an animal rescue spread like wildfire across social media in August 2025. The story, accompanied by photos in each post, was of a Russian tourist named Ivan Stepanov, who dove into frigid waters to rescue a sedated, drowning bear beneath the Tallac Bridge in South Lake Tahoe. According to the story, Stepanov said when asked why he risked his life, "In my country, we say a man's strength is measured by who he chooses to protect—even if it has claws." A Facebook post (archived) of the story got nearly 400,000 reactions in just a couple of days. Another Facebook post (archived) of the same story got 16,000 reactions. An Instagram post (archived) sharing the story got over 40,000 likes. Several readers reached out to Snopes to ask if it was true and many others searched the site for the story. The story as told in the Facebook posts was false. The photos were real, though, and from a real drowning bear rescue by an American man in Florida. A Google search for "Ivan Stepanov bear" yielded no legitimate news outlets covering the rescue, just social media posts spreading the story. A reverse image search (archived) for the photo attached to the story, however, returned 17-year-old news articles about a man who rescued a bear in Florida. The rescue, according to The Gainesville Sun, Tampa Bay Times and Gulf Breeze News, was the work of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Adam Warwick in 2008. After the bear wandered too close to people's houses, state wildlife officials shot it with a tranquilizer gun so they could move it, but the bear reacted by paddling out into the Gulf of Mexico. Warwick, believing he had only a few minutes before the tranquilizer dart took effect and the bear would drown, jumped into the water and first tried to splash it to encourage it to go back to shore. But that didn't work, so Warwick got behind the bear, hugged it and tried swimming it to shore. "The bear was heavy. Warwick used the animal's buoyancy to help him haul it to shore," the Tampa Bay Times wrote. "The animal was awake but could barely move. The bear tried to help out with a little doped-up paddling of its own." According to the Times, Warwick and a colleague drove the bear three hours east to Osceola National Forest the next morning. Two weeks later, the bear wandered into another residential area and Warwick found it a home at Hardee County Animal Refuge to save it from being euthanized, The Gainesville Sun reported at the time. Six years later, in 2014, the rescue got some national attention with stories from Game & Fish Magazine and the Financial Times. The version with "Ivan Stepanov" wasn't a real bear rescue shared with the wrong photo, either. Not only was there no real reporting of the tale, it also happened at a place that doesn't exist. While there is a Tallac area around South Lake Tahoe, there is no Tallac Bridge, even where the road crosses Tallac Creek. In fact, there are no bridges that cross Lake Tahoe. "Daring Rescue: FWC Biologist Saves Drowning Bear from Gulf." Gulf Breeze News - Your Community Newspaper, Gulf Breeze News, 3 July 2008, Accessed 15 Aug. 2025. Garry, Stephanie. "Biologist Pulls Doped Bear from Gulf." Tampa Bay Times, 10 July 2008, Accessed 15 Aug. 2025. Hanson, Debbie. "Florida FWC Biologist Makes Heroic Black Bear Rescue - Game & Fish." Game & Fish, Game & Fish, 20 Mar. 2014, Accessed 15 Aug. 2025. "Ivan Stepanov Bear - Google Search." Accessed 15 Aug. 2025. "Lake Tahoe - Google Maps." Google Maps, Accessed 15 Aug. 2025. The Associated Press. "Rescued 375-Pound Black Bear Will Go to Hardee County Zoo." Gainesville Sun, 10 July 2025, Accessed 15 Aug. 2025. van Gilder Cooke, Sonia. ""I Saved a Bear from Drowning."" Financial Times, Financial Times, 13 June 2014, Accessed 15 Aug. 2025.
San Francisco Chronicle
7 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Michael Franti denies abuse allegations after Soulshine cruise canceled
Spearhead frontman Michael Franti has denied allegations of grooming and sexual abuse, but acknowledged a romantic relationship outside his marriage with an artist he worked with. The revelations coincided with the cancellation of his annual Soulshine at Sea concert cruise. 'I'm aware of the recent posts this artist made about our relationship, and while I support her need to express herself publicly, the relationship was completely consensual, based on mutual feelings and attraction,' Franti wrote in a statement on Sunday, Aug. 17. 'I vehemently dispute any version of the story that says otherwise.' The Oakland-born musician, a regular attraction at local festivals such as BottleRock Napa Valley and Stern Grove, added: 'I will, however, take full accountability for not better recognizing the power imbalance — as she was younger than me, and I was the headliner on tour. For those reasons alone, I never should have allowed the relationship to become romantic.' Franti's statement followed mounting scrutiny after singer-songwriter Victoria Canal alleged in an Instagram post that she had been groomed and sexually abused by a much older, 'very powerful' man in the music industry when she was 19. Canal did not name Franti, but she has previously credited him with discovering her on Instagram in 2018, when she was 19, and inviting her on tour. 'This is something I've never spoken about publicly, and have been holding for eight years now — it has plagued my body, spirit, and mind, in subliminal and overt ways, for my entire 20s,' Canal wrote on Aug. 11, her 27th birthday. She described the man as 'loving, charismatic, and principled' in public, but controlling and abusive in private. 'Behind closed doors, this person has a history of incredibly damaging behavior across the board, and has a team of enablers around him who have fiercely protected his image, perpetuating this behavior for decades,' she wrote. Canal also alleged that he touched and photographed her without consent. 'These behaviors progressed over a year, slowly keeping me more isolated in a highly unfamiliar and contained environment,' Canal wrote. 'At the time, this person made me believe that if I ever told anyone what he was doing, my career would be over before it started.' In the wake of Canal's disclosure, several artists — including ALO, Dispatch, Maggie Rose, Liz Vice and Tank and the Bangas — announced they would no longer participate in the Soulshine at Sea, citing 'deeply concerning allegations.' 'We are actively working to announce a new event that will sail November 4-8, 2025,' the company said, offering ticket holders refunds or future credits.
