employees

The messages, reported by a Brazilian daily, say the platform recommended Bolsonaro’s profile and his WhatsApp channel.

Employees at Meta have acknowledged in internal communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were negatively affected by restrictions during the country’s election, media reports say.

The messages, reported on Friday by Brazilian daily Folha de S Paulo, also acknowledged the platform recommended the profile of Lula challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as well as his WhatsApp channel. Folha, the Sao Paulo-based paper, cited messages it had reviewed.

Meta told the Reuters news agency that the technical issues cited in the report were already public and the conversations it referenced related solely to the severity of the issues, not political interference.

“Any suggestion that Meta favors one side is false,” it added in a statement.

Lula, the left-wing incumbent, will face right-wing challenger Bolsonaro in a presidential runoff on October 25, following a stronger-than-expected performance by the senator in the first-round vote earlier this month.

Friday’s report came on the heels of a Brazilian court ruling on Thursday that ordered Meta to immediately adopt measures to provide equal treatment of the two candidates ahead of the runoff.

The ruling by a judge in Brazil’s top electoral court was made shortly after Lula filed a complaint that accused the tech giant – which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp – of using biased algorithms and AI restrictions to favour opposition candidate Bolsonaro ahead of the election.

Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze ruled that Meta cannot reduce the distribution of political content, restrict searches or remove posts in a way that creates an imbalance between Lula and Bolsonaro. His ruling also orders the company to ensure its artificial intelligence tool applies identical criteria to both candidacies.

Bellizze said in his ruling that Meta must pay a fine of 500,000 reais ($98,700) per day if it fails to comply.

According to Lula’s party, some of his posts appeared without a share button and had reduced reach. Options for reactions, sharing, audio or accelerated speed were also missing.

Kennedy Center officials were long aware of serious structural issues that they cited as new problems after the abrupt decision to close the performing arts venue this month, a group of former employees allege in a letter to Congress.

The center’s executive director and chief operating officer, Matt Floca, did not treat the roofing issues as priorities and in April halted a funded plan to address them, according to the letter Thursday signed by David Seide, a lawyer representing the anonymous whistleblowers.

Floca denied their allegations, saying recent investigations of the leaks exposed new hazards at the building.

In a September court declaration, Floca noted there were “acute risks to public safety” when the aging building temporarily closed its doors after an inspection of a deteriorating roof terrace canopy and a partial ceiling collapse. The former employees, however, claim those “acute” issues were known previously by Floca, who joined the Kennedy Center as vice president of facilities in 2024.

“More than one year ago, Mr. Floca had requested and received the needed funds to remediate the New Problems he references,” Seide wrote, citing President Trump’s tax cut and spending bill that he signed in the summer of 2025. “Yet six months ago – with the funds in hand – he stopped the remediation process from moving forward.” In the legislation, Congress earmarked $257 million for the Kennedy Center.

The letter, first reported by The New York Times, is the latest in a series of tensions over an iconic Potomac River waterfront building that has become a focus of the Republican president in his remaking of the nation’s capital in his second term. Trump has installed his own leadership to the center’s governing board and had his name placed on the building before a judge ruled the new lettering was illegally added and ordered it removed.

The Trump-aligned board voted earlier this month to close the center indefinitely for repairs hours after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper blocked its plans to return Trump’s name to the building.

Cooper has told the center that it must give 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it, as Trump has threatened. The Kennedy Center leadership also must file a status report no later than Friday on the temporary closure and emergency repairs.

Asked for a response to the whistleblowers’ claims, a Kennedy Center spokesperson sent a written statement from Floca, who said the safety of patrons, artists and staff is his priority.

“The Kennedy Center has known for years that the roof overhang leaked,” he wrote. “What we did not know until this summer was how far the damage had spread inside it.”

Floca added that rather than halting design plans in April as the whistleblowers alleged, he had reassigned the work to a more comprehensive plan because the contractor’s quote for the initial plans were nearly three times the expected cost.

“That was a change in the approach to procuring and delivering the work, not a determination that the work was unnecessary,” Floca wrote.

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, wrote Floca on Thursday after receiving the whistleblower letter. Whitehouse said the documents showed Kennedy Center leadership had “hoarded” congressionally appropriated funding for repairs “while blaming previous leadership for the state of repairs.”

“My initial investigation into misconduct at the Center focused on cronyism and corruption, with documents demonstrating considerable excessive and self-serving spending under President Trump’s chairmanship,” Whitehouse said. “The documents that I attach today seem to reveal deeper financial mismanagement.”

A spokesperson for the committee’s Republican majority did not immediately reply to a request for comment Saturday.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

Five months after pulling back from most of its Los Angeles soundstage business, production services company Quixote is selling much of its equipment operation.

Equipment rental house Cinelease recently announced that it had acquired Quixote’s grip and lighting and production supplies assets in Los Angeles and New York. The transaction resulted in roughly 60 layoffs, Quixote said. Most of the affected employees were based in L.A. with a few in New York.

The production supplies business will operate as Cinelease Pro Supplies.

“Our sales team is reaching out directly to clients with active or upcoming rentals from these businesses and will work with Cinelease to help ensure a smooth transition,” the company said in an email on Sept. 15 to its clients. “It has been our privilege to serve you, and we look forward to continuing to be your source for production and events transportation.”

In April, Quixote announced it was winding down most of its Los Angeles soundstage business, including its main commercial studio in West Hollywood and its North Valley studio in Pacoima. A producer has since taken over the Pacoima site.

Quixote has also closed its production services operation in Atlanta, following earlier closures in New Orleans and Albuquerque. Quixote’s Griffith Park studio will remain open.

Cinelease, a Los Angeles lighting and grip rental company founded in 1977, has been expanding in recent months. It has added rigging and fencing businesses and is pursuing work in live events and sports alongside film and TV.

Quixote was founded in 1995. Los Angeles-based real estate company Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. bought it in 2022 for $360 million, saying at the time that the acquisition would help address growing demand for soundstage space.

Quixote’s retreat comes amid a major slowdown in Hollywood production, as many productions leave California in pursuit of tax incentives around the world. The downturn has hit studio real estate hard. Radford Studio Center, which sold for $1.85 billion in 2021, was seized by lenders after its previous owner defaulted on its debt. Netflix agreed to buy the lot for between $330 million and $400 million. The Television City lot is also up for sale.

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of congressional leaders introduced a bill to create a federal film and television tax credit, the Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act. It would establish a 20% tax credit on U.S. labor for eligible film and TV productions. Its path is uncertain, however. The House is in recess until after the midterm elections, and supporters hope to pass the bill at the end of the year.

“As we enter this next chapter, our Fleet team remains committed to providing the service, expertise and support our clients have come to expect from Quixote,” the company wrote in an email. “We look forward to continuing to work with you to make your visions a reality.”

Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.