By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah on Tuesday added new protections for the children of online content creators following the child abuse conviction of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed parenting advice to millions on YouTube before her arrest in 2023.

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Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law under the encouragement of Franke’s now ex-husband that gives adults a path to scrub from all platforms the digital content they were featured in as minors and requires parents to set aside money for kids featured in content. Kevin Franke told lawmakers in February that he wished he had never let his ex-wife post their children’s lives online and use them for profit.

“Children cannot give informed consent to be filmed on social media, period,” he said. “Vlogging my family, putting my children into public social media, was wrong, and I regret it every day.”

The Frankes launched the now-defunct “8 Passengers” channel on YouTube in 2015 and began chronicling daily life as a seemingly tight-knit Mormon family in Springville, Utah. With its large nuclear families and religious lifestyles, the state is a hotbed for the lucrative family blogging industry. The reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” brought widespread attention to a group of Utah-based Mormon mothers and TikTok creators known as “MomTok” who create content about their families and faith.

The content-creation industry is largely unregulated, but several states are considering protections for the earnings of young creators. Laws in Illinois and Minnesota allow children to sue parents who do not set aside money for them. Utah’s law goes further, allowing content featuring minors to be taken down.

Son’s escape from home leads to investigation

The Franke children were featured prominently in videos posted up to five times a week to an audience of 2.5 million in 2010. Two years later, Ruby Franke stopped posting to the family channel and began creating parenting content with therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, who encouraged her to cut contact with Kevin Franke and move her two youngest children into Hildebrandt’s southern Utah home.

The women were arrested on child abuse charges after Ruby Franke’s emaciated 12-year-old son Russell escaped through a window and knocked on a neighbor’s door. The neighbors noticed his ankles wrapped in bloody duct tape and called 911. Officers then found 9-year-old Eve, the youngest Franke child, sitting cross-legged in a dark closet in Hildebrandt’s house with her hair buzzed off.

The women were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.

In handwritten journal entries, Ruby Franke insists repeatedly that her son is possessed by the devil and describes months of daily abuse that included starving her children and forcing them to work for hours in the summer heat without protection. The boy told investigators that Hildebrandt had used rope to bind his limbs to weights on the ground and dressed his wounds with cayenne pepper and honey, according to the police report.

Hoping to strike ‘content gold’

In a memoir published after her mother’s arrest, Shari, the eldest child, described how Ruby Franke’s obsession with “striking content gold” and chasing views led her to view her children as employees who needed to be disciplined, rather than children who needed to be loved. Shari wrote that her mother directed the children “like a Hollywood producer” and subjected them to constant video surveillance. She has called herself a “victim of family vlogging” and alluded in her book to early signs of abuse from her mother, including being slapped for disobedience when the now 22-year-old was 6.

Under the Utah law, online creators who make more than $150,000 a year from content featuring children will be required to set aside 15% of those earnings into a trust fund that the kids can access when they turn 18. Parents of child actors appearing in TV or film projects will also be required to place a portion of their earnings in a trust.

As the Utah Legislature was considering the legislation, a new Hulu documentary titled “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke” reignited interest in the case.

At a hearing last month, Kevin Franke read statements in support of the bill written by two of his daughters, ages 16 and 11. He filed for divorce shortly after his wife’s arrest and petitioned to regain custody of his children from the state. His lawyer, Randy Kester, did not respond to email and phone messages over the past week seeking to confirm whether Kevin Franke had regained custody in the sealed case.

Eve Franke, the youngest child who police found emaciated with her head shaved, wrote in a statement to lawmakers that they had power to protect other kids from exploitation.

“I’m not saying YouTube is a bad thing. Sometimes it brings us together,” she wrote. “But kids deserve to be loved, not used by the ones that are supposed to love them the most.”

A convicted sex offender is jailed and charged with raping a woman at his St. Paul home on Sunday after meeting her on an online dating app.

Green Isiah Kelly Jr., 38, was charged Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and criminal sexual predatory conduct. He was arrested Sunday night and remains at the county jail ahead of a first court appearance on the charges set for Wednesday. A defense attorney is not listed in the court file.

In 2013, Kelly was convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for raping a woman who had passed out from alcohol at a party in St. Paul, court records show. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, followed by 10 years of conditional release. Most people sent to prison in Minnesota serve two-thirds of their sentence in custody and the remaining on supervised release in the community.

Kelly was given an additional 15 months in prison in 2020 for repeatedly punching a fellow inmate in the face at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Faribault, according to court records. He was put on intensive supervised release in September.

According to Tuesday’s criminal complaint and St. Paul police:

A 37-year-old woman from Menomonie, Wis., reported to police about 4:15 p.m. Sunday that she had been sexually assaulted less than two hours earlier at a home in the 800 block of Aurora Avenue in St. Paul’s Summit-University area. She identified the suspect as “Isiah,” who was later identified as Kelly.

She told police she had met Kelly through a social media dating app about a month earlier, and that they began texting and made Facetime calls to each other.

She said the first time she saw Kelly she realized the photos he had posted on the dating app were not of him. She questioned him about that and he admitted they were not him. She said she told Kelly that she wasn’t interested in dating him, but was willing to be friends. They then talked casually.

On Friday, Kelly asked if they could get together, and she said she was coming into town the next day. Around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, she agreed to cut his hair and beard, and went to his home on Aurora Avenue to meet him. He took her to a local restaurant. While there, he said he wanted to be in a relationship with her, but she told him she wasn’t interested.

When they returned to Kelly’s home, he asked her to come inside to cut his hair and offered to pay her to do so. “(The woman) was suspicious because (Kelly) was bald,” the complaint states, adding that he then said he’d pay her full price of a haircut if she would trim his beard.

When she and Kelly went into his bedroom, where she thought she was going to trim his beard, he said, “Let’s get down to business” and grabbed her arm and began to kiss her on the neck, the complaint states. She told police she pushed him away and told him, “Not that type of business” and repeated that she did not want to be in a relationship with him and did not want to engage in sex.

Kelly then grabbed her by the arm and threw her on the bed. He ripped off her shirt, pants and underwear and pinned his body against hers as she screamed and kicked at him. She told police she repeatedly yelled, “No! I don’t want to have sex with you!” the complaint says. He then raped her.

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Kelly stopped when someone knocked on the door, she told police. When he answered the door in his boxer briefs, she grabbed her torn shirt and pants but could not find her underwear. She tried to leave the room with one pant leg on but Kelly met her at the bedroom door and told her not to leave. She was able to get past him and leave the home.

The woman drove directly to a hospital in Wisconsin. As she drove, Kelly called her multiple times. She recorded their conversations and provided them to police. Kelly apologized for not listening to her and said he let his “hormones speak for [him],” the complaint states. She told him that she had said “no” and yelled at him that what he did was “definitely not okay.”

After his arrest, Kelly underwent a suspect sexual assault examination. In an interview, investigators asked him if he knew the woman and he corrected the pronunciation of her name. He then said he wanted a lawyer.

Resident physicians at the University of Minnesota have filed for union recognition.

Organizers say a supermajority of the university’s group of nearly 1,000 residents and fellows voted in favor of unionizing.

In their announcement Monday, residents said they want to address long hours, difficult working conditions and low pay.

Dr. Mayrose Porter, a resident OB-GYN at the University of Minnesota, said she’s struggled with understaffed shifts and low pay. On some of her late-night shifts, she said, the only food she has access to is a vending machine.

“There’s no way to get around the fact that medicine is difficult … and that involves difficult training,” she said. “However, I think that there’s a lot of spaces within that that don’t need to be as difficult as they are.”

The residents would join SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents. Earlier this month, 200 Hennepin Health residents announced their intent to join the same union.

Organizers say many residents make around Minneapolis’ minimum wage: $15.97 an hour. They can work up to 80 hours a week.

Porter said the residency system doesn’t give doctors much room to advocate for better conditions. Since residents are assigned positions, they don’t get to compare pay, benefits and locations like employees or students in other fields can.

“You really don’t have any bargaining power,” she said. “I love working for the University of Minnesota, I was so happy to match here. And I can also recognize that there are other places that had better benefits, that had better pay, that had better quality-of-life aspects.”

Porter says unionizing could create a place to bring up concerns about work.

Residents are able to unionize following changes to Minnesota’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act in 2024, which adjusted bargaining units across the University of Minnesota.

The next step is for the state’s Bureau of Mediation Services to recognize the union. A U spokesperson said in a statement that the administration will be in touch with the organizers and the bureau.

“The University values our relationship with labor-represented employees and honors its obligations under the Public Employment Labor Relations Act,” the statement said.

Organizers say they want U administrators and President Rebecca Cunningham to start contract negotiations as soon as possible.

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By LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Angry over the crush of court rulings against the Trump administration, Republicans in Congress are trying to slap back at the federal judiciary with proposals to limit the reach of its rulings, cut funding and even impeach judges, tightening the GOP’s grip on government.

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House GOP leaders say all options are under consideration as they rush to rein in judges who are halting President Donald Trump’s actions at a rapid pace. In many cases, the courts are questioning whether the firings of federal workers, freezing of federal funds and shuttering of long-running federal offices are unlawful actions by the executive branch and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

In perhaps the most high-profile case, Judge James E. Boasberg ordered planeloads of deported immigrants to be turned around, raising the ire of Trump, who called for his impeachment, and billionaire Musk, who is funneling campaign cash to House Republicans backing impeachment efforts. The president calls the judges “lunatics.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that “desperate times call for desperate measures” without mentioning impeachment.

“We do have authority over the federal courts, as you know,” the Republican speaker said. “We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts, and all these other things.”

Not yet 100 days into the new administration, the unusual attack on the federal judiciary is the start of what is expected to be a protracted battle between the co-equal branches of government, unmatched in modern memory. As the White House tests the judiciary, trying to bend it to Trump’s demands, the Congress, controlled by the president’s own Republican Party, appears ready to back him up.

It all comes as the Supreme Court last summer granted the executive broad immunity from prosecution, setting the stage for the challenges to come. But Chief Justice John Roberts warned more recently that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

Democrats are warning against what they view as an assault on the judicial branch, which so far has been the only check against Trump and DOGE’s far-reaching federal actions. Threats against the federal judges, already on the rise, remain of high concern.

“It is outrageous to even think of defunding the courts,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, reacting to the House speaker’s claims. “The courts are the bulwark against Trump, and the Republicans can’t stand it.”

House GOP leaders met Tuesday with Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which will hold a hearing on the issue next week. The House is also expected to vote on a bill from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., that would limit the geographic reach of certain federal rulings, to prevent temporary restraining orders from being enacted nationwide.

Jordan said he also spoke Saturday with Trump during college wrestling championships in Philadelphia.

“All options are on the table,” Jordan said late Monday. “We want to get the facts. Gather the facts.”

Since Trump took office, and with Musk, on a mission to dramatically reduce the size and scope of the federal government, the administration’s tech-inspired move-fast-and-break-things ethos has run up against the constraints of federal law.

An onslaught of court cases has been filed by employee groups, democracy organizations and advocacy groups trying to keep federal programs — from the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Education Department — from being dismantled.

Judges have issued various types of restraints on Trump’s actions. Trump’s first administration alone accounted for 66 percent of all the injunctions issued on presidential actions between 2001 and 2023, according to data from a Harvard Law Review piece circulated by Republicans.

The legislation from Issa had no support from Democrats when it was approved by the Judiciary Committee last month. A similar bill was introduced Monday by GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said Trump is being hit with injunctions because he is “engaged in terrible, irresponsible and lawless violations of people’s rights.“

“We are winning in court,” Raskin said in a video address. “We’ve got make sure we defend the integrity of the judiciary.”

When it comes to actually impeaching the judges, however, top Republicans have stopped short of backing what would be a severe action.

Impeachments are rare in Congress, particularly of judges, but several rank-and-file House Republicans have proposed legislation to launch impeachment proceedings against various federal judges who have ruled in ways unfavorable to the Trump administration.

Musk has rewarded House Republicans who signed onto impeachment legislation with political donations, according to a person familiar with information first reported by the New York Times. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

Republicans are particularly focused on Boasberg, the chief judge of the district court in Washington, D.C., who Jordan said is in a “somewhat unique in that, you know, his decision was crazy.”

The judge is weighing whether the Trump administration defied his order after the planes of migrants landed in El Salvador, turned over to that country’s notorious mega-prison system. The Trump administration had invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a war-time authority used during World War II against Japanese Americans, for the deportations the judge said lacked due process.

Any impeachment effort would also require backing from the Senate, where GOP leaders also panned the effort.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., echoed the advice of Roberts in allowing normal legal procedures to play out.

“At the end of the day, there is a process, and there’s an appeals process, and you know, I suspect that’s ultimately how this will get handled,” Thune said.

Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.