Author: AFP

A French woman who revealed on television how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt, has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday.

The woman, named as Anne, told the “Seven to Eight” programme on the TF1 channel that she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros ($850,000).

The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as AI image-creating technology to send Anne what appeared to be selfies and messages from Pitt.

To extract money, they pretended that the 61-year-old actor needed money to pay for kidney treatment, with his bank accounts supposedly frozen because of divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.

Anne, a 53-year-old interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and half believing she was communicating with Pitt and only realised she had been scammed when news emerged of Pitt’s real-life relationship with girlfriend Ines de Ramon.

“The story broadcast this Sunday has resulted in a wave of harassment against the witness,” TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on his X account on Tuesday. “For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it from our platforms.”

Anne was said by the channel at the time of its broadcast to have been suffering from severe depression and received hospital treatment.

The interview, in which she was filmed openly and even shared family photos with reporters, went viral on Monday.

It sparked a deluge of mocking comments and jokes, but some online critics accused TF1 of failing to protect a vulnerable individual who might not have been unaware of the consequences of going public.

Toulouse Football Club tweeted that “Brad told us that he would be at the stadium on Wednesday” for the team’s next match before withdrawing the message and apologising.

Netflix France also posted on social media promoting “four films to see with Brad Pitt (really) for free”.

Romantic scams have been a feature of the internet since the advent of email, but experts say artificial intelligence (AI) has increased the risk of identity theft, hoaxes and fraud online.

Anne told TF1 that she was first contacted by someone posing as Pitt’s mother shortly after she began using Instagram for the first time while on a ski trip with her family in France.

 

“She told me that her son needed someone like me,” Anne explained.

The scammers messaged her again several days afterwards, this time posing as Pitt.

“At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,” Anne explained to TF1. “But I’m not used to social media and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”

“I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this?” she continued. “I’ve never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”

WASHINGTON: A global network on Thursday cautioned that there would be “real-world harm” if Meta expands its decision to do away with fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram while refuting Mark Zuckerberg’s assertion that this kind of moderation is tantamount to censorship.

Countries like Australia and Brazil are alarmed by the surprise announcement of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta, this week to drastically reduce content filtering regulations in the US. 

The tech tycoon said fact-checkers were “too politically biased” and the programme had led to “too much censorship”.

But the International Fact-Checking Network, which includes AFP among its dozens of member organisations globally, said the censorship claim was “false”.

“We want to set the record straight, both for today’s context and for the historical record,” said the network.

Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organisations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.

There could be devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift beyond US borders to programmes covering more than 100 countries, the International Fact-Checking Network warned.

“Some of these countries are highly vulnerable to misinformation that spurs political instability, election interference, mob violence and even genocide,” the network said.

“If Meta decides to stop the programme worldwide, it is almost certain to result in real-world harm in many places,” it added.

AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.

In that programme, content rated “false” is downgraded in news feeds so fewer people will see it and if someone tries to share that post, they are presented with an article explaining why it is misleading.

Zuckerberg courts Trump

Meta’s policy overhaul came less than two weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office and it aligns with the Republican Party’s stance.

Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.

Zuckerberg has been making efforts to reconcile with Trump since his election in November, meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and donating one million dollars to his inauguration fund.

The Meta chief also named Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) head Dana White, a close ally of Trump, to the company board.

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said Tuesday the decision came after “extreme political pressure.”

The move “will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family.”

Australia said Meta’s decision was “a very damaging development”, while Brazil warned it was “bad for democracy”.

Meta’s move into fact-checking came in the wake of Trump’s shock election in 2016, which critics said was enabled by rampant disinformation on Facebook and interference by foreign actors, including Russia, on the platform.

 At least five people have been killed in wildfires rampaging around Los Angeles, officials said Wednesday, with firefighters overwhelmed by the speed and ferocity of multiple blazes — including in Hollywood.

Up to 1,500 buildings have burned in fires that have broken out around America’s second-biggest city, forcing over 100,000 people from their homes.

Hurricane-force winds whipped up fireballs that leapt from house to house in the upmarket Pacific Palisades area, incinerating a swathe of California’s most desirable real estate favoured by Hollywood celebrities.

On Wednesday evening, a new fire erupted in the Hollywood Hills, just a few hundred metres (yards) from the storied Hollywood Boulevard, sparking an evacuation order for the world’s entertainment capital.

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said his crews were overwhelmed by the scale and speed of the unfolding disasters.

“We’re doing the very best we can. But no, we don’t have enough fire personnel in LA County between all the departments to handle this,” he said.

The fire raging in Pacific Palisades had consumed around 16,000 acres (6,500 hectares) as of Wednesday afternoon, taking 1,000 homes and businesses with it.

A separate 10,600-acre (4,300-hectare) fire was burning around Altadena, north of the city, where flames tore through suburban streets.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said five people were known to have perished, with more deaths feared.

“Remember, this is still a very fluid situation, there’s zero containment on this fire. I’m really praying we don’t find more, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” he said.

William Gonzales got out alive, but his Altadena home was gone.

“We have lost practically everything; the flames have consumed all our dreams,” he told AFP.

Hydrants run dry

Pasadena fire chief Chad Augustin said up to 500 buildings had been lost to the flames.

He hailed the bravery of first responders. “Our death count today would be significantly higher without their heroic actions,” Augustin told reporters.

Vicious gusts pushed the flames, whipping red-hot embers hundreds of yards (metres) and sparking new spot fires faster than firefighters could quell them.

Late Wednesday, a fire began in Runyon Canyon in the heart of Hollywood, close to historic sites like the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Fame and the El Capitan Theatre.

An evacuation order was put in place for a number of streets, all the way down to Hollywood Boulevard, as firefighters took to the skies to dump water on the blaze.

“There is no time to delay,” Margaret Stewart of LAFD said.

“We do not want people stuck. We want everyone safely exiting, get in your vehicles, grab your friend who doesn’t have a car, and head south.”

The sudden eruption created gridlock on Hollywood’s streets, hampering efforts by people who live in the area — a mixture of ritzy homes and rent-controlled apartments — to leave.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power chief executive Janisse Quinones pleaded with people to save water after hydrants in Pacific Palisades ran dry.

President-elect Donald Trump took to his social media platform on Wednesday to claim — wrongly — that the lack of water was the result of the state’s environmental policies.

In fact, much of Los Angeles’ water comes from the Colorado River, and farming — rather than residential use or firefighting — takes the lion’s share of all water that flows into Southern California.

US President Joe Biden cancelled a trip to Italy this week to instead focus on the federal response to the fires.

“We’re doing anything and everything, and as long as it takes to contain these fires,” Biden earlier told reporters.

‘Panic mode’

Having razed perhaps hundreds of multimillion-dollar homes, the Pacific Palisades fire looked set to be one of the costliest blazes on record.

AccuWeather said it estimated up to $57 billion of losses.

More than 300,000 households were without electricity in the region, according to Poweroutage.us. Utilities in California frequently de-energise lines during high winds to minimise the risk of new fires.

Wildfires are part of life in the US West and play a vital role in nature.

But scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather patterns.

Southern California had two decades of drought that were followed by two exceptionally wet years, which sparked furious vegetative growth — leaving the region packed with fuel and primed to burn.

Meteorologist Daniel Swain said the fierce winds — which have gusted up to 100 miles (160 kilometres) an hour — are stronger than the usual seasonal Santa Ana winds, but are not unexpected.

“The winds are the driver, but the real catalyst… is this incredible antecedent dryness,” he said.

“That’s something that we haven’t seen in records going back to the 1800s.”

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Monday, saying he will leave office as soon as the ruling Liberal party chooses a new leader after months of slumping polls and internal division.

“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader,” Trudeau, who has been in power since 2015, told reporters in Ottawa following a protracted political crisis that saw top Liberal allies urge him to quit.

It was not immediately clear how long Trudeau will remain in office as a caretaker premier.

He said the Liberal leadership race will be “a robust, nationwide competitive process.”

That means Trudeau will continue to lead Canada when incoming US president Donald Trump takes office this month and will be tasked with leading the country’s initial response to the new US administration, including a possible trade war.

Trump has vowed to impose 25 percent on all Canadian imports, which could prove devastating to the Canadian economy, and Trudeau has vowed to retaliate.

Trudeau’s support within the Liberal party had been teetering through much of last year but plunged to new depths following the surprise resignation in December of his former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland.

In a scathing resignation letter, Freeland accused Trudeau of focusing on political gimmicks to appease voters, including a costly Christmas tax holiday, instead of steadying Canada’s finances ahead of Trump’s promised tariffs.

Canadian media have tipped Freeland as a possible contender to taker over the Liberal Party along with the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, a Canadian who also previously led the Bank of Canada.

Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University, said traditionally a Liberal leadership race would take four to six months but this time “they’ve got to be quicker than that.”

“If they don’t have a new leader for the next election, then there’s no point,” she told AFP.

Trudeau’s Liberals are trailing badly in the polls to the opposition Conservatives and narrowly survived three non-confidence votes in parliament late last year.

His minority government had been held up by a deal with the left-wing New Democratic Party but in December the NDP said they would vote to topple Trudeau at the next opportunity.

Trudeau confirmed that he had received permission from Canada’s governor general to suspend all parliamentary business until March 24.

That could could give the Liberals time to choose a new leader while restricting the opposition chances to bring a vote of non-confidence.

The world’s oldest person, Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, has died aged 116, the city where she lived, Ashiya, announced on Saturday.

Itooka, who had four children and five grandchildren, died on December 29 at a nursing home where she resided since 2019, the southern city’s mayor said in a statement.

She was born on May 23, 1908 in the commercial hub of Osaka, near Ashiya — four months before the Ford Model T was launched in the United States.

Itooka was recognised as the oldest person in the world after the August 2024 death of Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera at age 117.

“Ms Itooka gave us courage and hope through her long life,” Ashiya’s 27-year-old mayor Ryosuke Takashima said in the statement.

“We thank her for it.”

Itooka, who was one of three siblings, lived through world wars and pandemics as well as technological breakthroughs.

As a student, she played volleyball.

In her older age, Itooka enjoyed bananas and Calpis, a milky soft drink popular in Japan, according to the mayor’s statement.

Women typically enjoy longevity in Japan, but the country is facing a worsening demographic crisis as its expanding elderly population leads to soaring medical and welfare costs, with a shrinking labour force to pay for it.

As of September, Japan counted more than 95,000 people who were 100 or older — 88 percent of whom were women.

Of the country’s 124 million people, nearly a third are 65 or older.