Day: April 10, 2026
High school student says teens lured, kidnapped, burned, battered, and forced him to drink alcohol — over a girl
Four Texas teens kidnapped a high school student and tortured him after a dispute over a girl, police records say.
The Houston Chronicle identified the suspects — all 17-year-olds — as Jose Rojas-Alvarado, Oscar Armando Santiago-Martinez, Angel Lemus-Perez, and Carlos Roberto Oliva-Villeda.
The affidavit said the suspects threatened to kill the alleged victim and harm his family and friends if he contacted the police about the reported encounter.
Court records show that all four suspects have been charged with aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon and engaging in organized criminal activity — both first-degree felonies.
Citing an arrest warrant, KVUE-TV reported that the alleged victim departed Del Valle High School with three of the four suspects and went to a nearby gas station on Feb. 19.
The alleged victim told police that the suspects — whom he had been friendly with for approximately two years — invited him to go and get food, the affidavit said.
However, the affidavit also said the suspects drove past the restaurant and instead drove the alleged victim to Rojas-Alvarado’s home, where the student said he had previously visited.
The alleged victim told investigators that he and the suspects were in the garage of the home talking for about an hour and a half before they instructed him to sit in a chair in the middle of the room, where he had his hands and legs restrained with duct tape, according to the affidavit.
“Two of the suspects left, with Rojas-Alvarado returning with a gun,” KVUE reported. “He then allegedly pressed the gun to the victim’s head and told him not to move as the other suspects began restraining him in the chair with duct tape.”
The affidavit said the suspects took turns hitting the alleged victim with aluminum baseball bats, belts, and a walking cane while Rojas-Alvarado held him at gunpoint.
Police said the alleged victim told them that Lemus-Perez heated a box cutter with a lighter and pressed it against his chest, while Rojas-Alvarado forced him to drink from a bottle of clear alcohol.
The alleged victim informed investigators that Rojas-Alvarado threatened to cut off his toe with the box cutter if he didn’t drink the alcohol from the bottle, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said Rojas-Alvarado grabbed a chainsaw and a machete while the suspects threatened to cut off his body parts. However, the alleged victim said Rojas-Alvarado was unsuccessful in starting the chainsaw.
The purported victim said Rojas-Alvarado told him he was being beaten and tortured for talking to his girlfriend, the affidavit revealed. The alleged victim said Rojas-Alvarado ordered him to stay away from his girlfriend.
The affidavit said the suspects threatened to kill the alleged victim and harm his family and friends if he contacted the police about the reported encounter.
The alleged victim told investigators that Rojas-Alvarado deleted his and the other suspects’ contact information from the teen’s phone, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said the suspects cut the alleged victim loose from the chair and then dropped him off at an unknown location.
KVUE reported that police obtained a search warrant and discovered evidence at the residence of Rojas-Alvarado that corroborated the alleged victim’s claims.
According to KVUE, police noticed contusions and redness on the alleged victim’s thigh consistent with blunt force trauma, as well as irregular marks on his chest, back, and abdomen.
During follow-up interviews with detectives, Santiago-Martinez, Lemus-Perez, and Oliva-Villeda admitted to planning the alleged attack a week prior and then coordinating and carrying out the purported confrontation, KVUE stated.
KVUE reported that Santiago-Martinez and Oliva-Villeda confessed to threatening, beating, and holding a toy gun to the head of the alleged victim.
The four suspects were arrested.
The Del Valle Independent School District provided the following statement to KEYE-TV:
Del Valle ISD is aware of the reports of an off-campus incident that resulted in the arrests of former DVISD students. The incident is being actively investigated by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. The district does not have further information at this time. The safety of our students and staff is our top priority, and we will continue to monitor this incident. We will always communicate with the school community when there are impacts to the school environment.
J’Kaideon Mitchell, a student at Del Valle High School, told KEYE, “I thought it was insane, especially at our school. It’s just crazy how strong that person would have to be to report it and just stay alive, honestly.”
The investigation is ongoing.
The Travis County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.
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‘Terrible acting ability’: White House hilariously fires back at George Clooney over war crimes allegation
Hollywood actor George Clooney criticized President Donald Trump for threatening to destroy Iran, and the White House fired back with a humorous response on social media.
The actor and director was speaking to about 3,000 high school students in Italy on Wednesday when he said the president’s threat would constitute a war crime if he followed through on it.
‘You can still support the conservative point of view, but there must be a line of decency, and we must not cross it.’
“Some say Donald Trump is fine. But if anyone says he wants to end a civilization, that’s a war crime,” Clooney said. “You can still support the conservative point of view, but there must be a line of decency, and we must not cross it.”
The president posted the message on his Truth Social account on the day of a deadline he had set for Iran to stop blocking ship traffic across the Strait of Hormuz.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he posted on Tuesday morning.
“47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!” he added.
Many other critics called for the president to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment for the threat to end a civilization. That evening, however, the president announced that a ceasefire had been reached with Iran after they both agreed generally to pause the conflict for two weeks.
Assistant to the President and White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung fired back at Clooney in a post on the X platform.
“The only person committing war crimes is George Clooney for his awful movies and terrible acting ability,” he posted.
Oil prices dropped after the announcement of the ceasefire, but the agreement appeared to be on shaky ground after Iran accused Israel and the U.S. of violating the terms only a day later.
Clooney went on to express his concerns about the U.S. possibly leaving NATO.
“I’m worried about NATO,” the actor said. “It has ensured that Europe, but also the rest of the world, has been safe. Dismantling an institution like this worries me. Aside from many mistakes, I believe the U.S. [with NATO] has also done many extraordinary things that have stood the test of time.”
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Disney fans cheer as Mouse House reverses DEI-inspired theme park change
It’s been nearly five years since the Walt Disney Company leaned into the corporate vogue of diversity, equity, and inclusion across its theme parks.
Now, some parkgoers think they’re hearing something different — something familiar.
‘The sound of the trip starting for real.’
DEI dream
Back in 2021, Disney confirmed to Newsweek that it would phase out the classic greeting, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” from announcements at Magic Kingdom. In its place came a more neutral line: “Good evening, dreamers of all ages,” part of a broader push to make park language more “inclusive.”
At the time, the change was treated as small but symbolic — another piece of Disney’s effort to align itself with the cultural priorities of the moment.
Now, a clip circulating on X suggests the company may be quietly loosening its grip on that approach. In the video, a monorail announcement clearly addresses riders as “ladies and gentlemen” while instructing them to hold the handrail — a phrase that, until recently, had been scrubbed from official park language.
Old times
No announcement has been made. No policy has been reversed, at least publicly.
But at a place like Disney, where every word is scripted and nothing is accidental, even a small change can signal something larger.
For longtime visitors, it’s not really about the phrasing itself. It’s about what it represents: a return to tradition — or at least a pause in the steady rewriting of it.
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No place for ‘ladies’
Various Disney-centric sites have stated that the removal of “ladies and gentleman” from park experiences was actually a bigger blow than it seemed. Inside the Magic called it the most recognized part of the vital experience that leads Disney fans into the theme park.
Disney Dining called the phrase “the sound of the trip starting for real,” noting its specific cadence made it memorable to park goers.
That Park Place reported that it took just a year for Disney to start treating gendered language like a bygone era, with progressive ideology becoming part of Disney’s internal training philosophy. The outlet cited diversity and inclusion manager Vivian Ware, who reportedly said cast members were being taught to avoid saying “ladies and gentlemen” and “boys and girls.”
Instead, the outlet stated, they were taught to say, “Hello, everyone,” or, “Hello, friends.”
The language shift wasn’t the only obvious change to standards at Disney, either.
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Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
Mixed-up mouse
In 2023, Disney partnered with a man who claimed to be “gender fluid” in order to promote a Minnie Mouse-themed clothing set that included a red dress, yellow pumps, and red hair bow.
Earlier that year, an employee at Disneyland, who appeared to be a man in a dress, was seen greeting little girls at the salon and dress shop called the “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.”
Align reached out to Disney Parks to ask when the gendered language was brought back into the attractions and the reasoning behind the policy change, but did not receive a reply.
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‘I’ll kill you in the name of Allah’: Knife-wielding male makes death threats in chilling driveway incident; suspect arrested
A knife-wielding male was caught on surveillance video issuing death threats — he was heard twice saying, “I’ll kill you in the name of Allah” — to another man in the driveway of an Ohio home in the middle of the night last weekend.
Anthony Tyrone Jessie Long, 23, was arrested and charged with aggravated menacing and aggravated trespassing after Warren County Sheriff’s deputies were called to a Franklin Township home just before 1:30 a.m. Sunday for a reported suspicious person, WXIX-TV reported, citing sheriff’s office records.
‘Hey bud, you knocking on the door?’
A woman told dispatchers that a male was walking around the front of the property and knocking on the door while holding a knife and threatening to kill her husband “in the name of Allah” before chasing after the couple’s daughter, who had just arrived in the driveway, the station said.
“We knew our daughter would just get out of the car and come right in,” the woman told WXIX in the aftermath, adding that “we were too afraid that the guy was going to do something to her.”
Surveillance video shows the suspect at first kneeling and bowing his head on the driveway. Soon the dad approaches the suspicious person and asks him, “Hey, bud, you knocking on the door?”
With that, the male walks toward the dad and twice tells him, “I’ll kill you in the name of Allah.”
The dad then retreats toward the house and yells for his daughter to drive away.
The daughter was able to get away, WXIX reported, and the suspicious person fled in a car.
When deputies got to the scene, the victims showed them surveillance video of the incident, the station said.
About 15 minutes later, Clearcreek Police were dispatched to a traffic stop near Bunnell Hill and State Route 122; a caller claimed they were being followed by a driver — and that the driver tried to ram the caller’s car, WXIX said.
With that, the person who called 911 led the driver to a Clearcreek Police station where officers detained the driver, identified as Long, as the driver matched the description of the suspicious person wanted for threatening the Franklin Township family, the station noted.
Deputies returned to the Franklin Township residence, and the family showed them video of the suspicious person with a knife — and the knife matched the one found in Long’s possession, WXIX said.
Long was taken to the Warren County Jail, and jail records on Thursday afternoon indicate he’s still behind bars. The station said Long is being held on a $1,500 cash-only bond for the Clearcreek incident as well as a $75,000 bond for the Franklin Township incident; his next court date is April 23.
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