Andrew Alty, a business owner from Manchester, England, recently found himself staring down a colossal $55,000 phone bill, all because his daughter was watching TikTok while they were traveling. The good news is, after a bit of a battle, that massive charge has now been completely waived.

According to Dailymail, this eye-watering sum wasn’t from a shopping spree on TikTok Shop, which, let’s be honest, can be tempting enough. Instead, it was purely from data usage. Alty’s daughter, an avid TikTok user, was simply scrolling through videos on the popular platform while the family was vacationing in Morocco. It really shows you just how quickly data can add up, especially when you’re venturing outside your usual service area. This is better than some bad vacations we’ve heard of, but still bad overall.

Alty, who runs a curtains business, made the shocking discovery when he and his family returned home. He was hit with two separate and exorbitant phone bills that totaled around £42,000, which converts to approximately $56,000. Imagine his sheer panic and disbelief. He naturally assumed there had to be some kind of huge mistake.

This was not the stress-free vacation they had bargained for

“I was on my way to the desert,” Alty explained, recounting his attempts to address the issue. “I made multiple attempts to call O2, but there wasn’t much I could do. I could only assume there had been a glitch, or the account had been hacked.” It turns out his daughter had been engrossed in TikTok for about eight hours, on and off, during their trip. That means each hour of scrolling was costing him a mind-boggling £5,000. 

The reason for these astronomical costs boiled down to a specific, and frankly, quite scary, clause in Alty’s phone contract. It allowed for uncapped data roaming whenever he was outside of Europe. So, unfortunately for him, the charges were technically permissible under the terms of his agreement. 

Daughter nearly bankrupts British family by racking up £42,000 data bill watching TikTok on holiday https://t.co/FZnWSHmbSm

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) February 20, 2026

Luckily for Alty, there was a happy ending to this data drama. After an investigation into the case, the phone provider eventually decided to waive the entire bill. 

Alty didn’t hold back his frustration with the situation. “They (the phone provider) made no effort to inform us, and just allowed the charges to accrue,” he stated. “I don’t understand how they expect any small business to pay that sort of bill.”

President Donald Trump has announced he is directing the US government to declassify a wealth of reports and files concerning UFOs and extraterrestrial life. This big move comes after the president publicly criticized former President Barack Obama for comments he made suggesting aliens might be real.

According to Politico, Trump shared his decision on social media, stating he would instruct the Department of Defense and other relevant agencies to start releasing this material. He specifically mentioned the Secretary of War, along with other departments, would identify and release government files related to “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.” 

This announcement follows recent remarks from former President Obama. In a recent interview, Obama had said that aliens are “real but I haven’t seen them.” He also addressed common conspiracy theories, specifically debunking the idea that extraterrestrial life forms are kept at a government facility in Nevada. Obama firmly stated, “They’re not being kept in Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

After all, aliens are a statistical probability 

The former president later clarified his comments on social media, explaining that his intent was to suggest that “the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.” He reiterated that during his time in office, he “saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us.” 

President Trump wasn’t too pleased with Obama’s initial statements. On February 19, he told reporters that he believes Obama had wrongly revealed classified information. This back-and-forth between the two presidents definitely ramped up interest in aliens, UFOs and extraterrestrial life – topics that are often confined to the fringes of public discussion.

"Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and… pic.twitter.com/3fKQ7wrSvi

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 20, 2026

Questions surrounding the U.S. government’s contact with UFOs really started gaining mainstream traction after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report in 2021 detailing dozens of encounters by U.S. Navy pilots with unexplained aerial phenomena, with incidents dating back to 2004. This report was a central point of discussion during a House Intelligence hearing in 2022, where declassified videos and descriptions of these encounters were presented.

New Mexico is officially reopening a criminal inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous Zorro Ranch. This is a huge development, especially since new allegations are surfacing from recently released Justice Department files concerning the convicted sex offender.

State prosecutors are making it clear they’re taking a “broad and comprehensive” look at the ranch, according to Attorney General Raúl Torrez on X. They’re actively seeking full access to all the unredacted Epstein files related to Zorro Ranch that federal investigators are holding in Washington D.C. Plus, they’ve pledged to team up with the new “Epstein truth commission” that state legislators just set up.

This bipartisan, four-member panel has a big job on its hands. It’s investigating serious allegations that the ranch might have been a hub for SA and trafficking. One of the state legislators on the commission, Andrea Romero of Santa Fe, told the BBC that there might have been reports to the FBI back in 2019, or even earlier, about bodies being buried and people being trafficked. 

New email from anonymous sender has everyone scurrying for answers

In fact, the state confirmed it’s investigating a specific 2019 email from the recently released documents. This email, from an anonymous sender, alleged that Epstein had ordered the bodies of two foreign girls to be buried outside the ranch. 

US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is also seeking an unredacted copy of that email. The lawmakers on the commission also want to know why Epstein didn’t register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl way back in 2008.

We are taking a broad and comprehensive look at Zorro Ranch–related matters and working alongside the truth commission and law enforcement partners. We will follow the facts and keep the public informed. pic.twitter.com/FXoCKBZGeG

— New Mexico Department of Justice (@NewMexicoDOJ) February 19, 2026

This isn’t the first time New Mexico has looked into the ranch. The state actually shelved its initial investigation back in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors in New York. Epstein, who died in a Manhattan jail in 2019, never faced any charges in New Mexico, but prosecutors did confirm in 2019 that they had interviewed possible victims who visited the property. There are reports from a number of women alleging they were abused by Epstein at Zorro Ranch. 

Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico highlighted how isolated and beautiful the landscape of Zorro Ranch is, noting, “We know that there are horrible things that occurred at that ranch.”

Zorro Ranch is located south of Santa Fe. There are thousands of references to it in the millions of documents released by the US Justice Department in late January. The ranch boasts a huge 21,000 square foot mansion perched on a hilltop, overlooking nearly 10,000 acres of desert. It even had its own private airstrip and helipad nearby.

Today, Zorro Ranch is owned by former Texas state Senator Don Huffines, who purchased it from Epstein’s estate in 2023.