Victoria Fox's Blog, page 226

May 17, 2023

Big Paydays for Media’s Big Chiefs: CEO Compensation Stays High Even in Hard Times

Economists are fretting about a recession. Media stocks are in the toilet. Layoffs are being enacted monthly as a spirit of cut, cut, cut grips Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Oh, and screenwriters are on strike, while directors and actors are threatening to join them when their contracts expire next month.

But for the media moguls and tech entrepreneurs who run the major conglomerates, it’s business as usual in one important respect. Yes, most of these corporate chieftains trimmed their pay packages … but not all of them did. Netflix’s Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos got double-digit bumps even as their company suffered a historic selloff. Apple’s Tim Cook’s total compensation neared $100 million, while Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai’s topped $225 million. Even those executives who took pay cuts raked in millions in bonuses, salaries and perks that left them firmly ensconced in the 1% of the 1%. The most eye-popping pay packages are usually inflated by present-day value of stock options that can’t be immediately cashed in but can still provide the wrong kind of incentive to keep stock prices high.

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“Compensation for these CEOs never goes down in bad times as much as it goes up in good times,” says Rosanna Landis Weaver of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. “When things are going well, boards always say, ‘Oh, my God, they’re all geniuses,’ and when things go bad it’s always blamed on external factors and not the person in charge.”

What kind of steady leadership did investors get in return for these mega paydays? Well, Disney kicked out Bob Chapek after three years, cushioning his blow with a $20 million golden parachute. NBCUniversal’s Jeff Shell was fired for cause after failing to disclose an affair with an employee. And Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch oversaw a news organization so eager to provide a platform for those peddling 2020 presidential election lies that it just paid a $787 million libel settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, while a $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic looms.

Some of these companies, including Fox and NBCUniversal parent Comcast, are tightly controlled, meaning their compensation committees don’t have to fear angry shareholders. And those that don’t have dual-class ownership, where a select few shareholders wield inordinate influence, still determine pay in comparison to the Comcasts and Foxes of the world.

“Other than bonuses, much of a CEO’s compensation isn’t tied to a company’s performance,” says Charles Elson of the University of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. “It’s determined relative to what every other CEO is being paid. That creates a scenario where it’s heads, I win; tails, I win.”

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Published on May 17, 2023 15:02

May 14, 2023

Kenyan Preacher Told Followers Starvation Was Their Salvation

Delirious from hunger, a believer who had brought his family to live with a Christian doomsday cult in a remote wilderness in southeastern Kenya sent a distraught text to his younger sister last week. While he begged her help to escape, he was still in the grip of the preacher who had lured him there, promising salvation through death by starvation.

“Answer me quickly, because I don’t have much time. Sister, End Times is here and people are being crucified,” Solomon Muendo, a former street hawker, told his sister. “Repent so that you’re not left behind, Amen.”

Mr. Muendo, 35, has been living in the Shakahola Forest since 2021, when, like hundreds of other believers, he abandoned his home and moved there with his wife and two young children.

They were following the call of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, a former taxi driver turned televangelist who, declaring that the world was about to end, marketed Shakahola to his followers as an evangelical Christian sanctuary from the fast-approaching apocalypse.

Instead of a haven, however, the 800-acre property, a sun-scorched wasteland of scrub and spindly trees, is now a gruesome crime scene, scattered with the shallow graves of believers who starved themselves to death — or, as Mr. Mackenzie would have it, crucified themselves so that they could meet Jesus.

By The New York Times

As of this past week, 179 bodies have been exhumed and moved to a hospital mortuary in the coastal town of Malindi, around 100 miles east of Shakahola, for identification and autopsy. The government’s chief pathologists reported last week that while starvation caused many deaths, some of the bodies showed signs of death by asphyxiation, strangulation or bludgeoning. Some had had organs removed, a police affidavit said.

Hundreds more people are still missing, perhaps buried in undiscovered graves. Others are wandering the property without food like Mr. Muendo — whose wife and children are missing, his sister said.

The horrific scale of what the Kenyan news media called the “Shakahola Massacre” has left the government struggling to explain how, in a country that counts itself among Africa’s most modern and stable nations, law enforcement had for so long missed the macabre goings-on in an expanse of land located between two popular tourist destinations, Tsavo National Park and the Indian Ocean coast.

Uniformed people carrying someone on a makeshift stretcher.

Security personnel carrying a person rescued from the Shakahola Forest in April.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

That so many people disregarded the most basic human instinct to survive and chose instead to die through fasting has raised sensitive questions about the limits of religious freedom, a right that is enshrined in the Kenyan Constitution.

Evangelical Christianity — and freelance preachers — have surged in popularity across Africa, part of a religious boom on the continent that stands in stark contrast to the rapid secularization of former colonial powers like Britain, which governed Kenya until 1963. About half of Kenyans are evangelicals, a far higher proportion than in the United States.

Unlike Roman Catholic or Anglican churches, which are governed by hierarchies and rules, many evangelical churches are run by independent preachers who have no oversight.

Kenya’s president, William Ruto — a fervent believer whose wife is an evangelical preacher — has been wary of imposing restrictions on religious activities, though last week he asked a group of church leaders and legal experts to propose ways to regulate Kenya’s chaotic faith sector.

For Victor Kaudo, a rights activist in Malindi who visited Shakahola in March, the freedom granted preachers like Mr. Mackenzie has gone too far. Tipped off by defectors from the cult, Mr. Kaudo found emaciated believers who, though in the throes of death, cursed him as “an enemy of Jesus” when he tried to help.

A starving woman, her head shaved on orders from the cult leadership, flailed angrily on the ground as Mr. Kaudo approached offering sustenance, a video he recorded showed.

“I wanted these starving people to survive, but they wanted to die and meet Jesus,” Mr. Kaudo recalled. “What do we do? Does freedom of worship supersede the right to life?”

Mr. Mackenzie has told investigators that he never ordered his followers not to eat and merely preached about the End Times agonies prophesied in the Book of Revelation, the final chapter of the New Testament. He was arrested in April, set free and then quickly rearrested. He is under investigation over accusations of murder, terrorism and other crimes. His lawyer declined to comment.

Appearing briefly before a court in Mombasa this month, Mr. Mackenzie, 50, wearing a pink jacket, cut a jaunty figure as he waved imperiously from inside a metal cage to get the magistrate’s attention. The magistrate ignored him and extended his detention.

Paul Nthenge Mackenzie in a courtroom in Mombasa, in southeastern Kenya.Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images‘It Was a Normal Church at the Beginning’

Mr. Mackenzie’s journey from destitute taxi driver to cult leader with his own television channel began in 2002 in a stone courtyard opposite a Catholic primary school in Malindi. The property belonged to Ruth Kahindi, who had met Mr. Mackenzie at a nearby Baptist church and invited him to preach at her home.

Together they formed their own church, Good News International, using Ms. Kahindi’s home as its base.

“It was a normal church at the beginning,” recalled Ms. Kahindi’s daughter Naomi, who remembers Mr. Mackenzie as a powerful speaker who initially stuck to the standard evangelical message of salvation through faith in Christ alone and the Bible as the ultimate spiritual authority.

After years of close partnership, Ms. Kahindi split with Mr. Mackenzie around 2008, the daughter said, after he became increasingly apocalyptic in his preaching.

There were also quarrels over cash, Ms. Kahindi’s daughter said, adding that Mr. Mackenzie was suspected of pocketing tithes.

In response, the daughter said, “he started accusing my mother of witchcraft.”

The Good News International Church in Malindi this month. Mr. Mackenzie stunned his followers in 2019 by announcing that he was closing the church, selling its property and retreating to the Shakahola Forest. Sarah Waiswa for The New York Times

Barred from using Ms Kahindi’s home for preaching, Mr. Mackenzie, no longer a pauper, built himself a big concrete prayer hall on a plot of land he had purchased in Furunzi on the outskirts of Malindi and declared this the new home of Good News International Church. Word spread of his warnings of the coming Battle of Armageddon.

Though bitterly estranged from Ms. Kahindi, he took with him one of her daughters, Mary, who had married one of Mr. Mackenzie’s most fervent followers, Smart Mwakalama, a former hotel cleaner.

Mr. Mwakalama is now also under arrest. His wife, Mary, and their six children have all vanished and are feared to be among the dead buried in Shakahola.

Mr. Mackenzie, said Mary’s sister Naomi, “is a demon” who has “ruined too many lives.”

Among those caught in the ruins is Priscilla Riziki, an impoverished villager who introduced her oldest daughter, Lorine, to Mr. Mackenzie’s preaching a decade ago. Wracked by guilt and grief, she visits the Malindi morgue each day to search for her daughter and three grandchildren, all of whom moved to Mr. Mackenzie’s retreat in 2021.

“My only hope now is to just see my daughter — either dead or alive,” Ms. Riziki said.

Priscilla Riziki holding a photo of her daughter Lorine Menza, 25, who was last heard from in March.Sarah Waiswa for The New York Times

A mob of angry residents, some of them disconsolate relatives of missing cult members, ransacked Mr. Mackenzie’s former church, last week, tearing down its pink front gate and smashing the surrounding wall.

“People are very angry and blame Mackenzie, but I blame the government,” Damaris Muteti, a member of a rival evangelical church and itinerant preacher, said, surveying the wreckage.

“Mackenzie is a good man, but the Devil used him,” she said. “Something went wrong.”

Mass graves in the Shakahola Forest, where 145 bodies have been exhumed.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSelling Land He Didn’t Own

A peanut seller named Titus Katana, who joined the Good News church in 2015 and rose to become deputy pastor, said he initially had great admiration for Mr. Mackenzie and his preaching. “He changed because of his false prophecies” about the end of the world, Mr. Katana said. “His main interest became making money, not preaching to the world.”

By 2017, he recalled, Mr. Mackenzie had started telling worshipers not to see doctors or send their children to school. He set up his own unregistered, fee-paying school at his church. He also claimed divine healing powers, for which he also charged.

“He told me he had received a revelation from God” about education and medicine being sinful, Mr. Katana recalled. “Everything bad started with this.”

Mr. Mackenzie had by this time expanded his reach far beyond the Kenyan coast thanks to his establishment of Times TV, a gospel channel that beamed his increasingly fiery sermons over the internet and across Africa. Among those missing in Shakahola are a Nigerian citizen and a Kenyan flight attendant.

“You get addicted to what he says,” Elizabeth Syombua said of Mr. Mackenzie.Sarah Waiswa for The New York Times

Elizabeth Syombua, the sister of the man now starving in the wilderness, said she and her brother had been entranced by Mr. Mackenzie’s television broadcasts. “You get addicted to what he says,” she said, recalling how she used to rush home from work at a Mombasa sewing factory so that she could join her brother to watch.

“He is like an evil spirt with this strange power to lure people into his trap,” she said.

Mr. Mackenzie’s growing popularity, however, also attracted the attention of the authorities.

He was arrested in October 2017 on four charges, including radicalization and promoting extremist beliefs, crimes that had previously been leveled mostly at Muslims responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in Kenya. Mr. Mackenzie pleaded not guilty and was acquitted.

He was detained again in 2019, and released on bail. He escalated his confrontation with the government, denouncing its introduction of national identification numbers for citizens as “the mark of the beast” — and yet another sign of approaching apocalypse.

Threatened with further prosecution, Mr. Mackenzie stunned his followers in 2019 by announcing that he was closing down the church, selling off its property and retreating to Shakahola Forest. He invited followers to join him and purchase small plots on what he said would be a new Holy Land.

Receiving exhumed bodies at a mortuary in Malindi last month.Monicah Mwangi/ReutersChildren Would Be the First to Perish

Mr. Katana, his former deputy preacher, said he had bought an acre for 3,000 Kenyan shillings, then worth around $30 — a low price but still a boon for Mr. Mackenzie, who did not legally own the land he was selling.

The arrival of the Covid pandemic in Kenya in 2020 increased the appeal of Mr. Mackenzie’s land offer and, for many, vindicated his longstanding message that the world was coming to an end.

Increasingly obsessed with the coming apocalypse, Mr. Mackenzie, according to Mr. Katana, issued “new instructions” in January to the hundreds of people who had moved to Shakahola, which the televangelist divided into districts with biblical names like Jericho and Jerusalem.

Mr. Mackenzie, casting himself as a Christ-like figure, lived in a section he called Galilee — after the area of Palestine where Jesus lived most of his life.

The instructions, Mr. Katana said, featured a methodical plan for mass suicide through starvation. The first to perish were to be children, who were “to fast in the sun so they would die faster,” Mr. Katana said, recalling the pastor’s words. In March and April, it would be the turn of women, followed by men.

Titus Katana said he initially had great admiration for Mr. Mackenzie, but “he changed because of his false prophecies.” Sarah Waiswa for The New York Times

Mr. Mackenzie, according to Mr. Katana, said that he would stay alive to help lead his followers to “meet Jesus” through starvation but that once this work was done, he, too, would starve himself to death ahead of what he said was the imminent end of the world.

In a video post online in March, Mr. Mackenzie said that he had “heard the voice of Christ telling me that ‘the work I gave you to preach End Time messages for nine years has come to an end.’”

Mr. Katana said he had by this time broken with Mr. Mackenzie and wasn’t in Shakahola when the suicide program started, but heard about it from believers who were. He went to the police to report that “kids are dying” in the forest.

“They never took any action until it was too late,” he said.

In April, Mr. Muendo, the former hawker who moved to Shakahola in 2021 with his family, telephoned his sister in Mombasa and told her that “we are starting a fast so that we can go to see Christ in Golgotha,” a reference to the site of Jesus’s crucifixion in the Bible.

“I told him: ‘I’m praying for you but we need you, so don’t crucify yourself,’” the sister, Ms. Syombua, said.

Mr. Muendo, according to his sister, asked her to understand that he had no choice but “to go through to the end.”

The sister said, “He was happy, because he thought he would be dying soon for Jesus.”

As for Mr. Mackenzie, she added, “he is a murderer.”

Clothing found in the Shakahola Forest.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Simon Marks contributed reporting from Nairobi, Kenya.

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Published on May 14, 2023 01:45

May 13, 2023

Kelly Clarkson Addresses Report Alleging Toxic Work Culture on Her Talk Show: ‘Committed to Maintaining a Safe and Healthy Environment’

Kelly Clarkson has addressed a report detailing the culture on her daytime talk show, which contained allegations that “The Kelly Clarkson Show” is toxic behind the scenes.

“To find out that anyone is feeling unheard and or disrespected on this show is unacceptable,” Clarkson said in a statement posted on Instagram. “I have always been, and will continue to be, committed to creating and maintaining a safe and healthy environment at ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show.’”

On Friday, Rolling Stone published a report in which 11 current and former employees anonymously made complaints about being “overworked” and “underpaid” on Clarkson’s talk show, telling the magazine that working under the show’s “toxic environment” was “traumatizing to their mental health.” In the report, the anonymous staffers said Clarkson is “fantastic,” but a number of the producers make their lives “hell.”

The report was published days after the talk show announced it would be moving production from Los Angeles to New York next season, meaning that many staffers and crew members will likely not continue with the show if they are not interested in moving across the country. News of the show’s move was first reported by Variety.

According to the Rolling Stone piece, employees had known for months that it was very possible that the show was moving, with Clarkson expressing her desire to move to New York and the showrunner taking meetings with employees to gauge their interest in moving with the show. But per the report, the staff did not learn that the big move was confirmed until “two minutes before” Variety‘s story published via a staff-wide email.

A spokesperson for NBCUniversal tells Variety in a statement, “We are committed to a safe and respectful work environment and take workplace complaints very seriously and to insinuate otherwise is untrue. When issues are reported they are promptly reviewed, investigated and acted upon as appropriate. ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’ strives to build a safe, respectful and equitable workplace that nurtures a culture of inclusivity and creativity.”

An individual who works on the talk show tells Variety that many staff members among the team of over 200 people feel the Rolling Stone report is not reflective of their positive experience working on the show.

This staff member tells Variety that just this month when the writers strike began, Clarkson sent a video of herself with a heartfelt message to the staff, letting them know that she would be covering their pay out of her own pocket for the days they were already scheduled to work. Production on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was shut down when the writers strike began, ahead of its May 20 season-end, which is when the show was planned to go on summer hiatus.

In Clarkson’s post, the host stated that she is committed to ensuring the show’s team is made up of the “best and kindest in the business.”

“In my 20 years in the entertainment industry, I’ve always led with my heart and what I believed to be right. I love my team at ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show,’” Clarkson said.

“I have always been, and will continue to be, committed to creating and maintaining a safe and healthy environment at ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show.’ As we prepare for a move to the East Coast, I am more committed than ever to ensuring that not only our team that is moving, but also our new team in NY, is comprised of the best and kindest in the business. Part of that build will include leadership training for all of the senior staff, including myself. There is always room to grow and ensure we are all being/becoming the best version of ourselves in any business. Especially when it comes to leadership, to ensure that any notion of toxicity is eradicated.”

Clarkson’s post garnered positive reaction from fans who thanked her for addressing the report. “I appreciate the fact that you acknowledged this, and your transparency on how you want the show to improve going forward! You are a class act always,” one person commented.

When Clarkson was on the cover of Variety last year, she spoke about the importance of leadership and setting a positive tone from the top. She spoke highly of her team and made a point to shout out other women in the talk show genre, which has been notoriously toxic for decades. Clarkson said that ahead of her show’s most recent season, they pushed their hours back 30 minutes so that she, and other parents working on the show, would have time to drop their kids off at school.

“Everyone at NBC is amazing and everybody wants everyone to be successful,” Clarkson told Variety. “It’s really helpful to have that type of unity in your environment at work.”

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Published on May 13, 2023 12:51

May 6, 2023

London Police Arrest Dozens of Protesters on Day of Coronation

London’s Metropolitan Police said they arrested 52 people on Saturday, most for offenses that appeared connected to the coronation of Charles III, including public order offenses, breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. In the afternoon, the police said that all those arrested remained in custody.

In advance of the coronation, the police had said that there would be little tolerance for disruptive protests and that they welcomed new legislation that came into force this week giving them more power to crack down on protests that cause “serious disruption.”

On Saturday, some protesters said that the arrests represented a breach of public freedoms.

“If that’s not infringing on protest rights then I don’t know what is,” said one protester reached by phone, Imogen McBeath.

Reuters

Some protesters, organized by Republic, the leading anti-monarchy group in Britain, had arrived early on Saturday in Trafalgar Square and on the Mall in London to publicly voice objections to the coronation, an event they saw as an invaluable opportunity to highlight what they see as the absurdity of having a royal family in modern Britain.

Republic said that among those arrested were its leader, Graham Smith, and other members of its core team. The group maintained that it had communicated with the police ahead of the protest and that the arrests came as a surprise.

Hundreds of yellow banners reading, “Not my king,” were also seized at Trafalgar Square, Republic said.

At the square, Liorah Tchiprout, 30, who wore a T-shirt with an embroidered portrait of Charles labeled “first class parasite,” said that the arrests could diminish the number of people having the courage to demonstrate, at a time when there was a lot to protest about.

“Our rights to protest are being eroded,” she said. “That might scare people.”

Elsewhere in Britain, fellow anti-monarchy protesters called the arrests in London heavy-handed. “We disagreed with that,” said Emyr Gruffydd, who was at an anti-monarchy rally in Cardiff, Wales. “It’s healthy in a democracy to be able to express yourself.”

Police officers leading away anti-monarchy demonstrators at the Mall.Mary Turner for The New York Times

Yasmine Ahmed, the director of Human Rights Watch in Britain, condemned the arrests. “People are being arrested on the streets of London for peacefully protesting against the monarchy,” she wrote on Twitter, adding, “These are scenes you’d expect to see in Russia not the UK. It’s disgraceful not dazzling!”

Despite the arrests, demonstrators at Trafalgar Square walked toward Hyde Park, holding signs that read, “Monarchy is moronic,” or “He is just some guy,” or “What if it was Andy,” in a reference to Charles’ disgraced brother, Prince Andrew.

They chanted “done with the monarchy” and “not my king,” but also “spend on health and education not on Charlie’s coronation.” They showed their middle finger to the jets during the flyover.

Actor Romy Elliot, 23, held a sign that read, “France gets more tourists,” a reference to a pro-monarchy argument that the British royal family helps Britain’s finances by being a tourist attraction.

The existence of the monarchy “just sends a message that if you are born lucky you get to a position of power,” she said. “It’s a dangerous message.”

Isabella Kwai contributed reporting from Wales.

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Published on May 06, 2023 11:06

April 26, 2023

Kaley Cuoco Honors Daughter at First Red Carpet Since Giving Birth

This flight attendant has landed back on the red carpet—and this time around, she’s a mom.

Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey stepped out in style for the April 26 premiere of Tom’s new series Love & Death, marking the actors’ first red carpet appearance since they welcomed their first child together, a baby girl named Matilda. (Their last red carpet outing was at the Critics Choice Awards in January.)

For the April 26 occasion, Tom looked sharp in Brioni. Meanwhile, Kaley donned an eye-catching blue dress with an aww-worthy piece of jewelry: a necklace that read “Matilda.”

Not only did Kaley keep her daughter close to her heart on the red carpet, but she also gave fans a new look at the little one on her Instagram Story that same day. As seen in the snap, Kaley and Tom posed poolside in their red carpet looks while holding the little one. The Big Bang Theory star added the words, “Date Night” to the sweet photo.

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Published on April 26, 2023 20:13

How Tom Sandoval Reacted to Raquel Leviss Affair Rumors on VPR

The Bravo world was rocked on March 3 when it was confirmed that Tom Sandoval and Ariana had broken up after nine years together, with an insider telling E! News that cameras were rolling on the cast at the same time, meaning the drama will likely play out on the Bravo series’ currently airing 10th season.

Their split came after Ariana reportedly learned Tom and Raquel had been having an affair for several months, with Scheana, Katie and Kristen all being photographed going over to Ariana’s house to console her. In addition, Kristen, who arrived with flowers and a bottle of wine, shared a selfie video of herself with Ariana on her Instagram Stories. “I stan Ariana,” she said. “This is in real time.”

Tom, meanwhile, played at a concert with his band Tom Sandoval & the Most Extras later that evening in Anaheim, Calif.

At the gig, many fans in the audience chanted “Cheater, cheater!” as Tom took the stage, as seen in a TikTok video. He did not respond, but after one guest shouted, “Ariana!” he said into the mic, “We love her.” As for him, another eyewitness told E! News that concertgoers also chanted “Douche” in his general direction.

Following news of their split, Ariana deleted her Instagram page, and, despite speculation, Tom’s rep told E! News exclusively that the reality star has not moved out of his and Ariana’s home.

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Published on April 26, 2023 19:07

‘Yellowjackets’ star will forfeit Emmys race due to gender categories

‘Yellow Vests’ actor Liv Hewson has decided not to take part in this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards because there isn’t a category they really fit into.

“There’s no place for me in the acting categories,” the Australian actor, who is non-binary and uses “they/them” pronouns, told Variety. “It would be inaccurate for me to introduce myself as an actress. It makes no sense to me to be lumped together with the boys. It’s quite simple and not so loaded. I cannot submit to this because there is no place for me.

Hewson plays teenage goaltender Van Palmer in Showtime’s acclaimed drama, which follows the lives of high school football players who find themselves stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash.

Showtime said earlier this year that the network planned for Hewson to be a nominee in the supporting actress category. But Hewson later decided they would not submit.

Last year, the series earned seven nominations for its first season, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress for Melanie Lynskey, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Christina Ricci.

Earlier this year, non-binary actress and “House of the Dragon” star Emma D’Arcy reflected on her nomination for Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards.

“When I started out, I really felt like I had to pretend to come across as a woman to be successful in this industry,” they said. “It wasn’t sustainable and I stopped pretending. Strangely, that’s when I was nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Globes, which is beautifully ironic.

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Published on April 26, 2023 18:52

Texas Brothers, 3rd Suspect Arrested in Murder of Auto Mechanic Over Repair Bill

Three people have been arrested in connection with the December 2022 death of a Houston auto mechanic over a repair bill, police said Wednesday.

Raudel Orozco, 20, Rolando Orozco, 22, brothers, and Jody Duron, 19, are charged with murder on December 23, 2022, death of Luis Casillas.

TEXAS LEGISLATIVES HOLD HEARING ON PROPOSED GUN RESTRICTIONS, PARENTS OF UVALDE SHOOTING VICTIMS SPEAK OUT

Luis Casillas was fatally shot in Houston last year and three suspects have been arrested, police said Wednesday. (Houston Fox)

Casillas, a husband and father of two daughters, was shot and killed in his body shop around 12:55 p.m. on the day of his death. He was trying to collect a $500 repair bill to fix a truck.

The owner of the vehicle came with five other men and refused to pay, authorities said.

Casillas told the men to drive away with the vehicle after they became aggressive, Fox Houston reported. His family said the killers chased him and shot him in the head.

He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead.

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The Orozco and Duron brothers were arrested on Tuesday.

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Published on April 26, 2023 18:51

Three high school students arrested after deadly rock-throwing incident just outside Denver

Three high school students have been arrested and charged with throwing a landscaping rock at a Colorado woman, killing her as she was driving just outside Denver, authorities said Wednesday.

Alexa Bartell, 20, ‘was killed when a rock was thrown through her windshield as she was driving’ north in the 10600 block of Indiana Street around 10:45 p.m. in Westminster on April 19, said Jefferson County Sheriff’s investigators in a statement.

Bartell’s was the last of several cars “hit by large landscaping boulders during a frenzy that began shortly after” 10 p.m. near 100th Avenue and Simms Street, officials said.

Public tips and cellphone data played a key role in the search for suspects and the arrests, sheriff’s spokesperson Jacki Kelley told reporters.

“This case has touched a lot of people deeply,” Kelley said. “She was a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her who was just driving home, and her life ended as a result of these acts. It was shocking to a community, and people wanted to know who was implied. “

Alexa Bartel. (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office)

Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, Joseph Koenig and Zachary Kwak, all 18, were taken into custody at their home in Arvada, according to the sheriff’s statement.

All three are 12th graders at Jefferson County Public Schools, Kelley said. One attends Ralston Valley Secondary School, another Standley Lake Secondary School and a third is enrolled in an online program, she said.

A school district representative could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Two suspects were arrested at 10:59 p.m. Tuesday and a third at 2 a.m. Wednesday, Kelley told reporters. They all lived with their parents.

Sheriff’s investigators called Bartell’s family in the middle of the night to inform them of the arrests.

“They’re just grateful,” Kelley said. “They always suffer the greatest possible loss.”

The boulder is what killed Bartell and not a later crash, which took place about 20 miles northwest of Denver and 10 miles southeast of Boulder, officials said.

The story continues

“The rock went through Alexa Bartell’s windshield, hitting her and killing her,” Kelley told NBC News on Wednesday. “The boulders we have featured in this detective series are all about 4-6 inches tall and weigh about 3-5 pounds each. They are large landscaping boulders.”

The suspects were traveling in a black 2016 Chevy Silverado; it was not immediately clear who was driving or who threw the rock that killed Bartell, officials said.

“We believe the vehicle was traveling in the opposite direction of our victims,” Kelley said.

All three suspects were arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder by extreme indifference, the sheriff said.

While first-degree murder is typically associated with an intended victim and a motive, Colorado’s Extreme Indifference Law is for defendants who intended to kill someone — not just a targeted individual, Ann England said. , professor of clinical law at the University of Colorado.

“Pulling out an AK-47 and shooting into a crowd of people, there’s no question you intended to kill,” even if you weren’t targeting a specific person, England said.

“Throwing a rock (and charging it with first degree murder) is going to be tough. I mean, is throwing a rock a known risk (to possibly kill someone)? Throwing a rock at a moving car now that someone’s dead seems obvious, right? But before that? I’m not totally sure.

It was not immediately clear whether the three men had hired or been assigned attorneys to speak on their behalf.

Phone calls to publicly listed phone numbers for the Colorado parents of Koenig, Kwak and Karol-Chik went unanswered Wednesday.

The three teenagers were due to make their first court appearance on Thursday morning.

Kelley said she remembers individual instances of rocks or bricks being thrown from bridges over the years in Colorado, but never a string of such reckless acts.

“These suspects went from place to place throwing large rocks through the windshields of moving vehicles. We have never seen this before.”

This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com

Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor.

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Published on April 26, 2023 18:45

Savannah Chrisley Reveals She Once Dated Colton Underwood

Savannah Chrisley is dishing on her dating past.

The Chrisley Knows Best alum recently sat down with Colton Underwood, and the two rehashed the time they briefly dated in 2017.

“When we met for the first time, I knew you were gay. Like, I knew it,” she told Colton during the April 25 episode of her Unlocked podcast. “It was the ACM Awards. It was after Luke Kennard and I broke up, I was like, ‘Alright, screw this.’ You know how it goes. You go through a breakup.”

The Bachelor Nation member had also just got out of a relationship at the time with Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman.

“I was coming off of a breakup too,” Colton chimed in, “and I was just like, ‘Oh, why not. Let’s go see.'”

Savannah and Colton both took the plunge and went on a date, but realized shortly after that it wasn’t a fit.

As Savannah put it, “there was no connection whatsoever” between the two.

“When I say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ I truly mean that,” the former football star joked. “And obviously, I’ve proven that at this point.”

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Published on April 26, 2023 15:56

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