Utah
FOX 13 Investigates: Lawsuit against rural newspaper is test for new Utah law
DELTA, Utah — Diane Mecham was born and raised here.
And she’s a reader of the local newspaper, the Millard County Chronicle Progress, which traces its history to 1894.
“It’s just the hub of our wheel of the whole community,” Mecham said. “It gives us our information all the time.”
Mecham calls a lawsuit threatening the newspaper “scary.”
“They keep us up to date on the county progress, the city,” she said. “There’s birthdays, obituaries. There’s wedding announcements. It’s a social as well.”
Businessman Wayne Aston filed a lawsuit against the Chronicle Progress in December. The suit asks for “not less” than $19.2 million. A judge Wednesday in Fillmore will hear an argument from the newspaper asking the lawsuit to be thrown out, citing a statute the state Legislature passed in 2023.
If Aston receives even a fraction of the money he’s seeking, the Chronicle Progress — 2,500 copies of which land in mailboxes and on store shelves once a week in desert communities stretching from central Utah to the Nevada line — would likely close.
BUSINESS PROPOSAL
In early 2023, Aston proposed to manufacture modular homes and other projects at a parcel across from the airport in Fillmore, the Millard County seat. The Chronicle Progress reported how Aston sought public funding for infrastructure improvements that would benefit his projects.
In December, Aston sued the Chronicle Progress in state court. He claims defamation, contending the Chronicle Progress published “false and defamatory statements.”
The Chronicle Progress in Wednesday’s hearing will ask the lawsuit be dismissed because of the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act. Passed in 2023, the Utah Legislature was concerned that lawsuits — and the cost of litigation — were being used to silence First Amendment activities.
The Act provides a legal mechanism for a judge to quickly determine whether slander lawsuits have merit and to dismiss such suits if they don’t. The defendants also have opportunities to recover their legal fees.
At a Utah Senate hearing in January 2023, media law attorney Jeff Hunt testified in favor of the bill. He was representing a media coalition that includes FOX 13.
“And the purpose, I think it’s important to emphasize,” Hunt testified, “in bringing these lawsuits is not to vindicate someone’s legal rights, but rather to intimidate citizens and subject them to costly litigation for speaking out on matters of public concern.”
Hunt now represents The Chronicle Progress in the suit filed by Aston. (Hunt has also had FOX 13 News as a client.) In their written briefs, Hunt and the newspaper have argued the reporting was accurate.
They’ve included citations to Aston’s bankruptcy cases and the business lawsuits filed against him. Aston has claimed reporting on those issues was false.
“This case is a retaliatory lawsuit brought by a litigious real estate developer,” the defense brief says, “who seeks to silence the voice of the small-town newspaper that dared report on his efforts to convince Fillmore city to help him raise hundreds of millions of dollars….”
PLAINTIFF ARGUMENTS
Aston’s lawyer, Ryan Fraizer, sent FOX 13 News a statement on behalf of his client. It reads:
“We support the constitutional rights of free speech, including those espoused in the principles behind the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act. However, the statute (is) not intended to shield media outlets from the consequences of publishing malicious and demonstrably false allegations or information that harms individuals or businesses.
“We believe that is the situation at issue in the lawsuit. We trust that the Court will carefully examine the facts and hold the newspaper responsible for any damages they have caused.”
Meanwhile, Aston’s plans for the Fillmore development have not come to fruition. City Council minutes show no discussion since March.
Mecham calls the Chronicle Progress “very factual.”
When asked whether she thought the newspaper was the reason Aston’s project hasn’t blossomed, Mecham replied: “I think our communities can think for themselves. They don’t need someone telling them how to do it.”
Utah
22-year-old arrested in Utah in connection to Las Vegas double-homicide
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Officials have identified a 22-year-old man as the suspect in a Las Vegas homicide case that killed two people in a Southern Highlands neighborhood.
Detectives say 22-year-old Ziaire Ham was the suspect in the case. According to officials, Ham was located on Tuesday, March 3, by the Ogden City Police Department and the Utah Highway Patrol.
Ham was taken into custody and booked into the Weber County Jail. Las Vegas authorities said he will be charged with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon and will be extradited back to the valley.
MORE ON FOX5: LVMPD corrections officer arrested on multiple felony charges
The shooting occurred Monday night at the 11000 block of Victoria Medici Street, near Starr Ave and Dean Martin Drive.
According to police, officers were conducting a vehicle stop in the area when they heard gunfire. After searching nearby neighborhoods they found a car with bullet impacts with a woman and a toddler inside suffering from gunshot wounds.
The pair were transported to hospital where they later died. The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified them as Danaijha Robinson, 20, and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
Utah
Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A simple moment watching a child laugh changed everything for Ivan Gonzalez.
Eight years ago, Gonzalez was working at the Ronald McDonald House when he had an idea to throw a birthday carnival for the kids staying there.
“Let’s do a carnival, birthday carnival for the kids,” he said.
MORE | Pay It Forward
What happened during that event stuck with him.
“There I was watching this kid play whack-a-mole, just having a blast, laughing,” Gonzalez said. “And then I see his mom kind of with happy tears because he’s enjoying himself.”
That moment led to something bigger.
Gonzalez realized the experience shouldn’t stop with just one event or just one group of kids.
“I said, wait, we can do this not just for kids in the hospital,” he said with excitement.
So he started a nonprofit called Best Seat in the House, which creates events and experiences for children who often face difficult circumstances.
“We provide events and experiences for disadvantaged kids,” Gonzalez said.
The organization serves children battling cancer and other medical conditions, refugee children, kids living in poverty, those in foster care and children with special needs.
“These kids grow up too fast,” Gonzalez said.
For Gonzalez, the mission is deeply personal.
“I grew up very poor,” he said.
He remembers the people who stepped in for his family when they needed it most.
“The local church, we weren’t even a part of it,” he described. “My parents couldn’t afford Christmas gifts and I still remember the gifts they gave me. They didn’t even know me.”
Today, he hopes to create that same feeling for other children through his nonprofit.
“Kids live in poverty and they don’t know where the next meal is coming from, let alone going to a play or to a game,” Gonzalez said.
But for Gonzalez, the reward isn’t the events themselves, it’s the joy they create.
“You can give me a billion dollars, all the money in the world,” he says as tears roll down his face. “I won’t trade these opportunitieskids just enjoying life.”
Because of his work giving back, KUTV and Mountain America Credit Union surprised Gonzalez with a Pay it Forward gift to help him continue creating those moments for kids across Utah.
For more information on supporting Best Seat in the House, click here.
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Utah
‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing
SALT LAKE CITY — Francisco Daniel Aguilar says he’s sorry for shooting and killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jacqueline “Jacky” Nunez-Millan, a Piute High School sophomore, in 2023.
But just as he did when he was sentenced, he didn’t have much of an explanation on Tuesday as to why he shot her not once, but twice.
“It just kinda happened. I was mad. And I stepped out (of my truck) and started shooting,” he said. “When I saw her fall, I just kind of panicked, I just went and shot her again.”
But Jacky’s friends and family members say even before she was killed, Aguilar already had a history of violence, and they now want justice to be served.
“You don’t accidentally take a gun, you don’t accidentally grab a knife … you don’t accidentally shoot someone, those are all choices,” a tearful Rosa Nunez, Jacky’s sister, said at Tuesday’s hearing. “Keep him where he needs to be.
“Don’t release him ever. Please.”
On Jan. 7, 2023, Aguilar, who was 17 at the time, got into a fight with his girlfriend, Jacky, shot her twice and left her body near a dirt road outside of Circleville, Piute County. He was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to a term of 25 years to up to life in prison.
Because of Aguilar’s age at the time of the offense, board member Greg Johnson explained Tuesday that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is required to hold a hearing much earlier than the 25-year mark, mainly to check on Aguilar and “see how things are going.” Aguilar, now 20, is currently being held in a juvenile secure care facility and will be transferred to the Utah State Prison when he turns 25 or earlier if he has discipline violations and is kicked out of the youth facility.
According to Aguilar’s sentencing guidelines, he will likely remain in custody until at least the year 2051.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Aguilar told the board that he was feeling “stressed out” during his senior year of high school. He said he and Jacky would often have little arguments. But their bigger fight happened when he failed to get her a “promise ring” around Christmastime, he said.
On the night of the killing, the two were arguing about the promise ring and other items, Aguilar recalled. At one point, he grabbed a knife and then a gun because, he said, he wanted to “irritate” and “scare” Jacky. According to evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, Aguilar and his girlfriend had been “trying to make each other angry” when Aguilar took ammunition and a 9mm gun from his father’s room and then drove to the Black Hill area in his truck with Jacky.
Jacky’s friend, McKall Taylor, went looking for her that night and found her. But after Aguilar shot Jacky in the leg, he began shooting at Taylor, who had no choice but to run to her car to get away. Her car was hit multiple times by bullets. Aguilar then shot Jacky a second time as she lay on the ground and Taylor drove away.
On Tuesday, Taylor’s mother, Lori Taylor, read a statement to the board on her daughter’s behalf.
“My innocence and freedom was taken from me,” she said.
McKall Taylor says the “horrifying events of that night will forever play in my head,” and the sounds of Jacky screaming and the gunshots as well as the sight of Jacky falling to the ground, will never go away.
“Francisco is a murderer who has zero remorse,” her letter states.
Likewise, Rosa Nunez told the board that for her and her family, “nothing in our world has felt safe since” that night as they all “continue to relive this horrific moment.”
After shooting Jacky and driving off, Aguilar says he called his father and “told him I was sorry for not being better, for not making good choices, I told him that I loved him. I was just planning on probably shooting myself, too.”
His father told him that although what he did wasn’t right, “he’d rather see me behind bars than in a casket,” and then told his son to “be a man about it. … This is where you have to change.”
Aguilar was arrested after his tires were spiked by police.
“An apology won’t fix what I did. I’ll never be able to fix what I did. But I want to say I’m sorry,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t even know how to fix what I did. I’m hoping I’m on the right track now.”
Johnson noted that Aguilar has done well during his short time being incarcerated. But that doesn’t change the fact “the crime was horrific,” he said.
The full five-member board will now take a vote. The board could decide to schedule another parole hearing for sometime in the future or could order that Aguilar serve his entire life sentence. But even if that were to happen, Johnson says Aguilar could petition every so often for a redetermination hearing.
The board’s decision is expected in several weeks.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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