A Texas influencer who sent anorexic clients $300 weight-loss plans as part of a fitness program that allegedly also misled women about “personalized” eating plans is expected to appear in court next month.

Brittany Dawn Davis had promised to help thousands of women with fitness packages ranging from $92 to $300 that offer personalized health plans, coaching services, exercise and nutrition tips.

However, a lawsuit filed in early 2022 alleges that the personalized plans and tips never happened and that the program violated consumer protection laws, misled people with eating disorders, and used fraudulent practices to attract customers.

Davis, who has amassed more than 474,000 followers on Instagram, gave up her fitness gig years ago after clients complained about her questionable business practices. Her trial is scheduled for March 6 in Dallas County, Texas.

Brittany Dawn Davis is due to appear in court on March 6 after allegedly misleading clients about “personalized” meal plans and aggravating the conditions of clients with eating disorders

Davis, who has amassed more than 474,000 followers on Instagram, gave up her fitness gig years ago after clients complained about her questionable business practices.

At least 14 women with eating disorders turned to Davis for help with their recovery, but claimed she instead aggravated their condition with low-calorie diets, which the Texas attorney general said would only be appropriate for those looking to shed pounds.

In one case, a former client who weighed 80 pounds at the time enrolled in the Davis program because she was applying to be an “eating disorder soldier.”

This customer nearly passed out due to poor diet, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The lawsuit also alleges that Davis charged customers a shipping fee for emailed diet and nutrition plans that were intended to be individualized to meet customers’ specific needs but were instead generic.

Prosecutors said the influencer, who ran a company called Brittany Dawn Fitness LLC, began selling online fitness packages to thousands of customers in 2014, promising each they would receive “personalized” nutritional advice and coaching.

Plan prices ranged from $92 for a one-time consultation to $300 for three months of nutrition counseling, training, and coaching.

“However, the online nutrition and fitness plans provided to consumers were not individualized,” the lawsuit said. “The defendants also failed to provide the promised coaching and check-ins.”

Davis had promised to help thousands of women with fitness packages ranging from $92 to $300 that offer personalized health plans, coaching services, exercise and nutrition tips

Davis posted before and after photos of herself on Instagram to promote her program

Davis faced Heat in 2019 after a growing number of women came forward that she sold them “generic” workout plans and then deleted their complaints on social media

Davis began facing the heat from customers in 2019 after a growing number of women came forward saying she sold them “generic” workout plans and then deleted their complaints on social media.

She ignored customer complaints until 2019, when a public outcry about her services prompted her to address the complaints on YouTube.

“I made a mistake,” she said. “I took full responsibility for it, I did things right and I did everything I could to make things right. As a business owner, as an influencer, I’ve learned from this and I’m a prime example of what can happen when you have a platform and screw it up.”

After the complaints surfaced, Davis took down the website where she sold diet and fitness plans.

But many of their disappointed customers said they weren’t refunded for the wrong plans. In a private Facebook group dedicated to complaints about Davis, more than 5,000 women gathered to share their horror stories.

A customer who bought a 90-day plan only received an email from Davis. Another customer who bought a similar plan said Davis cut contact within two weeks.

Others said that when they approached Davis with a question or a specific question, they gave impersonal responses like, “THIS IS MY GIRL! You kill it!’ or ‘You have this baby!’

Davis referred her clients to a “Team Brittany Dawn” Facebook group for support, but the forum backfired when clients realized they had received identical plans, the court document said.

“One consumer commented, ‘I initially thought you created this workout plan based on my needs and desires… until I referred 2 friends to you and their plans were the same,'” reads the legal filing.

Davis referred her clients to a “Team Brittany Dawn” Facebook group for support, but the forum backfired when clients realized they had received identical plans

At least 14 clients mentioned eating disorders in their complaints, though Davis claimed she never treated clients with eating disorders, the lawsuit says

Customers said they didn’t adequately tailor meal plans to those recovering from eating disorders and asked for an additional “shipping fee” to email documents

The lawsuit also claimed it misled consumers with eating disorders, luring them with a YouTube video in which she claimed to have overcome her own eating disorder through exercise and a healthy diet.

She promoted her fitness plans on the social media posts, the court filing said, leading potential clients to believe she had special training in treating eating disorders.

“One consumer remarked that “the main reason I chose them [Ms. Davis] of all the coaches out there, it was explicit that she was promoting herself as an “eating disorder soldier.”

“It was incredibly important to me that the person I chose for my coaching had an idea of ​​what it’s like to deal with an eating disorder.”

More than a dozen eating disorder sufferers who subscribed to Davis’ plans said they received “suggestions about low-calorie macronutrients that would only be appropriate for someone who needs to lose weight and not gain weight.”

A TOS-1A captured by the Ukrainians last year.

Via social media

The Russian army deployed to breach the Ukrainian defenses around Vuhledar, a key base in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region at least one its prized TOS-1A thermobaric rocket launcher.

The Ukrainians blew it up. dramatic. A TOS-1A is a 24-pack of 220mm “flamethrower” missiles mounted on a tank chassis. If you hit a TOS-1A, it’s likely to explode in a billowing fireball, scattering flames and missile fragments in all directions.

That is exactly what happened on or before Valentine’s Day, when the Ukrainian Army’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade attacked a TOS-1A outside of Vuhledar. How Ukrainian cameras captured the sky and the floorthe Russian launcher exploded like a gigantic firework display.

The 72nd Mechanized Brigade’s destruction of the TOS-1A may have thwarted another Russian attack on Vuhledar, a town with a pre-war population of just 14,000 located a few miles north of Russian-held Pavlivka, 40 km southwest of Donetsk Donbass region.

Along with Bakhmut and the free cities near Russian-held Kreminna, Vuhledar is one of the main targets of Russia’s ongoing winter offensive. Neither Russian attack makes much headway, but the attack on Vuhledar may be the most disastrous for the Russians.

In just one bloody, chaotic day two weeks ago, the Russians lost 30 or more armored vehicles around Vuhledar. Their losses only deepened in the days that followed. The Russians have deployed at least three brigades around Vuhledar and it appears that two of them – the 40th and 155th Marines Brigades – are on the brink of incapacity.

Ukrainian mines – buried along the main approaches to Vuhledar and also scattered from above by special US-made artillery shells – claimed many of the victims.

But crossing the minefield is not enough for the Russians. On the other side of the mines, the Ukrainians dug earthen walls and built bunkers. If the Russians are acting rationally, it was these fortifications that TOS-1A targeted on or before Valentine’s Day.

Thermobaric munitions like the TOS-1A fires are uniquely destructive. They burst over their targets, spreading a vapor of fuel before exploding. The explosion ignites the fuel and creates a blast twice as powerful as that of a conventional artillery shell.

“A fuel-air explosive can have the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon with no residual radiation,” explained Lester Grau and Timothy Smith in a 2000 article in the Marine Corps Gazette.

Thermobarics are uniquely suited to breaking fasteners. “Because a fuel-air mixture readily flows into all cavities, neither natural terrain features nor non-hermetic field fortifications (emplacements, covered trenches, bunkers) protect against the effects of fuel-air explosives,” Grau and Smith added.

“When a fuel-air charge is fired into a building or bunker, the plume becomes trapped and this increases the destruction of the structure’s load-bearing components.”

The Russians deployed the basic TOS-1 – a less heavily armored precursor to the current TOS-1A with 30 missiles instead of 24 – in Afghanistan’s defiant Panjshir Valley in the 1980s and reportedly again in Chechnya in 2000, both times with devastating effect.

Later, the Russian, Syrian and Iraqi armies used TOS-1As against rebels and militants. Azerbaijan appears to have used TOS-1As in its brief, bloody campaign against Armenia in 2020.

For the ongoing war, the Russians seem to have moved most of their 50 or so TOS-1As to Ukraine. The Ukrainians destroyed at least one of the 45-ton launchers and captured four others – and fired at least one captured carrier back at the Russians.

How many TOS-1As the Russians still have is unclear. Regardless, they were willing to risk at least one of the valuable vehicles, which can cost up to $7 million to build, escalating their attack on Vuhledar.

After the loss of dozens of tanks and combat vehicles, and possibly hundreds of troops trying to cross this minefield and breach the Ukrainian defenses around Vuhledar, the Russians are clearly in despair. And maybe a little sloppy.

The TOS-1A is a powerful weapon, but a vulnerable one. Its unwieldy missiles have a range of just two miles, meaning a launcher must get within range of enemy tank guns before it can open fire. It’s a dangerous proposition for the three-man crew of the launch vehicle.

In Soviet doctrine, a TOS-1 is used with tanks as escorts. “The lore has it that the TOS-1 should decimate a large area by charging ahead under the cover of tanks and firing its missiles in rapid succession (all [24 or] 30 missiles in 7.5 seconds) and then return to rearm for rearmament and redeployment,” explained Grau and Charles Bartles in their definitive book, The Russian Way of War.

It is not clear that the Russians adhere to this doctrine. It seems there were no escort tanks in sight when the Ukrainians blew up this TOS-1A outside of Vuhledar. Which, of course, could be the reason why the Ukrainians were able to hit the thermobaric launcher.

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TENSIONS

Updated 2/18/23 at 9:35pm

Several thousand trade unionists demonstrated on Saturday, mainly in Sfax in east-central Tunisia, to protest the arrest of one of their leaders and the deterioration in the economic situation.

Tunisian President Kais Saied on Saturday ordered the expulsion of the European Union’s top trade union official over what Tunis has described as “blatant interference” in the country’s internal affairs, the presidency said. “By order of President Kais Saied, the Tunisian authorities have ordered the departure of Esther Lynch,” the Secretary-General of the European Trade Union Confederation said in a press release.

According to the press release, Esther Lynch “attended a demonstration organized by the Tunisian General Union (UGTT) and made remarks that constitute blatant interference in Tunisia’s internal affairs”. The authorities are giving her 24 hours to leave Tunisia, where she is now considered “persona non grata”, according to the same source.

“Hands off our unions, free our leaders”

Earlier in the day, the European trade union official took part in a demonstration organized in the port city of Sfax at the call of the powerful trade union confederation UGTT. It was one of many demonstrations organized simultaneously in several cities across the country to protest the arrest of a key local union official and the deteriorating economic situation.

Esther Lynch came to bring “solidarity from Europe’s 45 million workers” and addressed the crowd gathered in this historic bastion of Tunisian trade unionism. “We say to governments: free our unions, free our leaders,” she said. The Tunisian government must “sit down and negotiate with the UGTT to find a solution” to improve the current political and economic situation, she added. In particular, the demonstrators protested the arrest at the end of January of Anis Kaabi, in charge of the UGTT’s highway department.

20 minutes with AFP

The Ukrainian authorities have banned three Italian journalists from covering the war: Andrea Sceresini, Alfredo Bosco and Salvatore Garzillo. They are accused of being spies for the Russians.

From left: Andrea Sceresini, Alfredo Bosco, Salvatore Garzillo

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Forbidden to document the war: ad Andrea Sceresini, Alfredo Bosco and Salvatore Garzillo – three Italian journalists – in recent days the Ukrainian authorities have prevented them from carrying out their work and reporting on the conflict.

These are reporters who have followed the unfolding of the fighting since 2014, well before the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, and who for those nine years have correctly reported the events of the war and have exclusively sided with the martyred populace. Well, despite their proven professionalism, Sceresini and Bosco – who are in Kiev – were denied military accreditation overnight. Instead, Salvatore Garzillo, an employee of Fanpage.it, was turned away at the border with Poland.

Apparently, the three were locked into one by the Ukrainian secret services Blacklist of undesirables with the heavy, never officially formalized charge of being supporters of the Russians. In a letter to the Art. 21 Association, the attorney Alexandra Ballerinidefending the three reporters, explains: “In fact, this completely unfounded allegation amounts to a very serious violation of the right to information and a specific risk to the safety of my customers“.

USA: At least 6,000 Ukrainian children in Russian “re-education” camps

Lawyer Ballerini: “The safety of Italian journalists is at risk”

The lawyer adds: “The suspension of accreditations – duly issued in March 2022 – makes it impossible to move freely in the country, especially in areas close to the front lines, and the real risk of being arrested at the first checkpoint.” improper provision makes it impossible for my clients to practice their journalism profession and poses a serious threat to their safety.
The only official news communicated to the journalists Sceresini and Bosco, despite the many reminders also sent through our embassy, ​​concerns a hypothetical ‘interrogation‘ to which they were to be subjected and which were to be carried out by the men of the SBU, the Ukrainian security service. Originally, this “interrogation” was supposed to take place in Kramatorsk on February 6 and for this purpose the phone numbers and addresses of the two journalists were sent to the SBU with the request that the interrogation could take place as soon as possible.”

Where are Sceresini, Bosco and Garzillo

The interrogation never took place. Sceresini and Bosco spent a few days in a town often bombarded by the Russians, unable to leave their homes for obvious security reasons. Then, on the advice of the Italian Embassy in Ukraine, the two reporters They stopped in Kyiv, where the headquarters of the SBU is located. They’re still waiting to be questioned.

Salvatore Garzillo was February 14th prevented from entering Ukraine via the Polish border, as “undesirable”. No further explanations were given to him either.

The hope is that it will be the prime minister who will unblock the situation Giorgia Meloni, who will travel to Kiev on Monday. Apparently, besides Andrea Sceresini, Alfredo Bosco and Salvatore Garzillo, there were seven or eight other Italian journalists in Ukraine, all of whom were unable to do their jobs and document the war.