GRIF MAG

Dominic Russo was killed when his girlfriend, Mackenzie Shirilla, crashed her car into a brick wall in July 2022

NEED TO KNOW

• The 20-year-old's family members initially stood by Mackenzie before realizing the crash may have been intentional

• Dominic's dad, Frank Russo, and older sister, Christine Russo, were both interviewed for the Netflix documentary The Crash

Dominic Russowas just 20 years old when he waskilled in a high-speed car crash.

Dominic began datingMackenzie Shirillawhen she was a freshman in high school, and they started living together after she graduated high school. Although the two were called inseparable, they also struggled with challenges in their relationship — including trust issues and volatile behavior.

On July 31, 2022, Mackenzie, who was 17 at the time, was driving Dominic and their friend, 19-year-oldDavion Flanagan, home from a party in the early morning hours. Within a few moments, Mackenzie suddenly accelerated her car to 100 mph and crashed it into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio.

Both Dominic and Davion were killed in the crash, while Mackenzie was hospitalized for her injuries and survived. Mackenzie vehemently maintained that the crash was an accident and that she didn't remember the moments leading up to it. However, she was arrested in November 2022 and wasconvicted of Dominic and Davion's murdersthe following March.

While Dominic's parents and family members initially stood by Mackenzie and believed her story, they have since changed their minds and have expressed mixed opinions after seeingvideo footage of Mackenzie's pre-crash behavior.

Both Dominic's dad Frank and sister Christine, opened up about their love for their son and his tragic death in the Netflix documentary,The Crash, which came to the streamer on May 15.

Here's everything to know about where Dominic Russo's family is now.

Who was Dominic Russo?

Dominic was raised in Strongsville, Ohio, and had a close relationship with his parents, Christine and Frank, and his siblings.

“He literally was just starting his life... and he was just a baby. So he had his whole life ahead of him," his sister Christine told PEOPLE in 2023.

Christine described her younger brother as kind, funny and caring.

"He was the most doting and proud uncle to our children," she said. "He was so loved, and he is so indescribably missed. I'm so proud to call him my brother.”

The older sister also participated in the Netflix documentary with some of her other family members and later toldNBC Newsthat the grief has "gotten worse."

"As time goes, we're missing him more as different stages of grief are hitting,” she explained. “Since the sentencing, it's appeal after appeal after appeal. There's no resting; there's no finding peace. It's just constant, like them slapping it again in our face every six months.”

Meanwhile, Dominic's father, Frank, said that his son was a "go-getter" who loved music and basketball.

“He was opening up his own clothing line, he was not average kid, I'll tell you that,” Frank toldNBC Newsin 2023.

What happened to Dominic?

Around 5 a.m. on July 31, 2022, Mackenzie started driving Dominic and Davion home from a graduation party. Thirty-six minutes later, she slammed her 2018 Toyota Camry into a brick wall.

Dominic and Davion were pronounced dead at the scene, while Mackenzie was rushed to the hospital and treated for various injuries, including multiple bone fractures.

When investigating the deadly crash, authorities learned that the interior of the car had "exploded" upon impact, Assistant Prosecutor Tim Troup said inThe Crash.Forensic auto investigators subsequently conducted an in-depth investigation that determined Mackenzie had accelerated the car to an estimated 100 mph in the moments before the crash.

The investigation also found that there were no technological malfunctions that caused the car to inexplicably speed up. The Camry's "black box" revealed that the accelerator pedal was pressed 100% down with no indication of braking.

“Three seconds before the impact, there was some steering input: Right movement, left movement and then a hard right movement,” Sergeant Ryan Fox of the Ohio State Highway Patrol said in the doc. “It shifted from drive into neutral, back into drive again.”

Mackenzie's bloodwork tested positive solely for THC and psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana were found in the car. Her attorneys later argued that she could have unconsciously crashed the car as a result of a medical emergency.

Advertisement

After a three-month investigation, Mackenzie was ultimately arrested in connection with Dominic and Davion's deaths. She was charged with four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, one count of drug possession and one count of possessing criminal tools.

“The evidence all comes together to show: This was not an accident,” Troup said in the Netflix doc.

In August 2023, Mackenzie wassentenced to two concurrent terms of 15 years to life in prisonwith credit for time served and a permanent suspension of her driver's license.

What have Dominic's family members said about his death?

Shortly after losing their beloved family member, Dominic's parents initially supported Mackenzie and believed that the crash was an accident.

However, in September 2022, Dominic's brother, Angelo, started speaking with authorities and admitted that his brother and Mackenzie's relationship was far from perfect. Angelo also claimed that Dominic tried breaking up with Mackenzie several times and shared video footage of Mackenzie allegedly trying to break into Dominic's home after he wouldn't let her inside.

“Dom tried to break up with her multiple times,” Angelo told police, per footage shown inThe Crash. “Dom would have to call Kenzie's parents, call her mom and stuff, and say, ‘Hey, you need to get Kenzie out of here. She's refusing to leave my house; she's being crazy.' "

Dominic's sister Christine told police that she knew they were fighting but also thought it was a tragic accident.

"You know, they were kids. Accidents happen all the time like that," Christine said inThe Crash. "You never in a million years think, 'This girl killed your brother.' "

Upon seeing the footage of Mackenzie trying to break into Dominic's house, the Russo family's opinions changed, and many of them believed that Mackenzie had intentionally killed Dominic. Both Dominic's mom and brother Angelo ended up testifying in court about the couple's allegedly volatile relationship.

Even though many of the Russo family members came to the same conclusion about what happened to Dominic, not all of them agreed on Mackenzie's sentencing.

“It's horrible for everybody. Yeah, I lost my son, it's harder on our family, but I don't want the rest of her life ruined too. It isn't going to make me feel any better,” Frank told NBC News at the time. "The whole thing's just a shame."

Frank added, "She's just a little kid. She f---ed up. She did a damn stupid thing but now her parents are destroyed, her family's destroyed too. I wish there was a way she could get some kind of help, some kind of treatment.”

However, his sister Christine told PEOPLE that she disagreed with the sentencing for different reasons.

“I feel like the sentences should have been [run] consecutively,” she said. “I can't imagine how I would feel if Mackenzie got out in 14 years. My brother's life and Davion's life was completely stolen. They don't get out in 15 years. They don't come back in 15 years. They don't get any chance to live a life.”

Dominic's mom,Christine, spoke at Mackenzie's sentencingand said that "evidence and science proved" she "murdered my son Dominic, as well as Davion."

"Time does not heal this wound," she emotionally shared. "Mackenzie is going to prison because you did this. Be thankful that you're still alive and have a future, whatever that may be. Dom and Davion were robbed of their futures, their hopes and their dreams. Mackenzie showed no mercy on Dom, nor did she on Davion. Only God at this time can have mercy on her soul."

Where is Dominic Russo's family now?

In the years since Dominic tragically died, his family members have either taken a step out of the public eye or continued advocating for him.

Both Frank and his daughter, Christine, appeared inThe Crashwhere they opened up about Dominic's death and legacy. The two further slammed Mackenzie for trying to get her conviction appealed.

"She actually intentionally murdered him," Christine said of Mackenzie in the doc, while later adding, "She got 15 years, that's nothing."

Since the documentary was released on May 15, Christine hasaccusedThe Crashfilmmakers of lyingabout aspects of the case and only using interviews from Mackenzie's friends. She went on to launch a podcast,The Big Sister: Unhinged, where she says she is "working tirelessly to reclaim his narrative from media sensationalism and misinformation."

"A central focus of her work is debunking lies and defending Dominic's character," the description reads. "She dives into the realities of public tragedies and the warning signs of toxic relationships, offering a platform where victims' families can find clarity. Based in Ohio, Christine remains a pillar of the Russo family, dedicated to advocacy and ensuring Dominic and his friend Davion are remembered for the truth of who they were and the lives they lived."

Read the original article onPeople

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — At least 131 deaths and over 500 suspected cases have been reported in the latestEbola outbreakin eastern Congo, the Congolese health ministry said Tuesday as the World Health Organization's head expressed concern over the “scale and speed of the epidemic.”

The virus spread undetected for at least a few weeks since the first person died of the virus, health experts and aid workers said, and the delayed response is now complicating efforts to curb the outbreak.

Congo’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, said 513 suspected cases and 131 deaths have been recorded, though he added “these are suspected deaths, and investigations are underway to determine which ones are actually linked to the disease.” The numbers mark a sharp increase from Monday, when officials said there were 300 suspected cases, and highlight the largely unknown scale of the outbreak.

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he is “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic” and the U.N. health agency will convene its emergency committee later Tuesday.

He said the emergence of cases in urban areas, the deaths of healthcare workers, significant population movement in the area and a lack of vaccines and therapeutics are the main reasons for concern “for further spread and further deaths.”

Health authorities say the outbreak, first confirmed Friday, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare variant of the Ebola disease that has no approved therapeutics or vaccines. The WHO declared the Ebola outbreak apublic health emergencyof international concern on Sunday.

Cases have been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu’s rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo, and Nyakunde. There has also been one case and one death reported in Uganda in people who traveled from Congo.

AnAmerican doctoris among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, medical director of the country’s National Institute of Bio-Medical Research. Dr. Peter Stafford had been treating patients at a hospital there when he developed symptoms, Serge, the organization he works for, said in a statement.

Three others employees of Serge were working at the same hospital — including Stafford’s wife — but are not showing symptoms.

False negative Ebola tests delayed the response

Congo has said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, and the body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.

“That caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,” said Kamba, the health minister.

When another person fell ill onApril 26, samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control.

Samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common type of Ebola, Zaire, Congolese officials said. They came back negative, said Dr. Richard Kitenge, the Health Ministry Incident Manager for Ebola, and local authorities assumed it was not Ebola.

On May 5, the WHO was alerted of about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu, including four health workers, which prompted further tests. The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14.

Advertisement

Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics said that because of the false negative tests, “we are playing catch-up against a very dangerous pathogen.”

He criticized the Trump administration’s earlier decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid — “the exact surveillance system meant to catch these viruses early,” he said.

The U.S. State Department pushed aside criticism on Monday, saying that it sprang into action immediately and has already provided $13 million in assistance for the response.

Esther Sterk with the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group told the AP: “The situation is quite worrying and is evolving pretty quickly. It was detected quite late.” But she said that was often the case with outbreaks of Ebola, which has similar symptoms to other tropical diseases.

This is a rare type of Ebola

Ebola is highly contagiousand can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal.

During a big Ebola outbreak over a decade ago, which killed over 11,000, many got infected while washing bodies during community funerals.

“Ebola is very much a disease of compassion in that it impacts the people who are more likely to be taking care of sick folks,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, an associate professor at the Brown University School of Public Health who survived Ebola more than a decade ago after contracting the disease in Guinea.

The U.S. CDC says it causes fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.

The severity of the symptoms and the rising caseload are fueling a growing sense of panic in the neighborhoods of Bunia.

“I know the consequences of Ebola, I know what it’s like,” said Noëla Lumo, a resident of Bunia. She previously lived in Beni, a region hit by former outbreaks. When she heard about the latest outbreak, Lumo began making protective masks by hand.

The region already grapples with a humanitarian crisis

Ituri’s Mongbwalu is in remote eastern Congo with poor road networks more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa.

Eastern Congolong has grappled with a humanitarian crisis and the threat of armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in Ituri in the past year.

U.N. staff have been asked to work from home and avoid physical contact and crowded areas, said a Bunia-based U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.

Ituri has over 273,000 displaced people out of a population of 1.9 million, according to the U.N.

Denise, a patient of Beverly Hills, Calif., surgeon Dr. Carl Truesdale, underwent full-face rejuvenation surgery in early 2026

NEED TO KNOW

• Her immediate facelift results went viral, and she tells PEOPLE how it impacted her recovery

• She previously underwent a rhinoplasty and breast augmentation

When Denise, a mom and nurse from Northern California, decided to get plastic surgery in her late 50s, she wasn't nervous about what was to come. By then, she had already undergone a breast augmentation in the '90s as well as a rhinoplasty. When she went into the operating room in January for full-facial rejuvenation, it wasn't the operation itself that shocked her — it was what came after.

Four months ago, Denise, who was 57 at the time of her procedure, underwent a deep plane facelift, neck lift, lip lift, eye pinch and CO2 laser treatment performed by Beverly Hills, Calif.-based surgeonDr. Carl Truesdale.

"I've never had any kind of facial plastic surgery in the past that was this extensive," she tells PEOPLE of what inspired the transformation. "But as I got into my mid-50s, my skin really started to lose its elasticity, and it just started getting to where I thought, 'Well, let's fix this before it turns into a major issue.' " She also got a little nudge from her friend, who told her, "Well, why don't you? You'd spend that much on a car.'"

So on Jan. 6, she underwent the intense surgery without telling anyone, and her results were so seamless that no one in her personal life suspected plastic surgery. "When I went back to work, people would pass right by me, and a couple people would say, 'Oh wow, you looked good and refreshed. You had some time off. You must have went on vacation,' " she recalls.

The reaction to her appearance was a lot different online.

While Denise stayed mum about her procedure in real life, her teenage daughter — who traveled with her to Beverly Hills for the surgery — revealed that she started goingviral online. "I remember standing there in the kitchen, and my 19-year-old said, 'Mom, oh my gosh, you're on Instagram.' And I'm like, 'What do you mean?'"

Truesdale is famous for his clients' before-and-afters, and his social media video of Denise right after her procedure — stitches and all — garnered over 11 million views on TikTok. In fact, it gained so much traction that Denise says her friend from Alaska, who hadn't known about her procedure, texted her to ask if she'd had surgery.

Advertisement

The original video received a fair share of negative comments and scrutiny, but the reactions were nowhere near how Denise herself felt. "It was really pretty shocking to me, and I just had to step away from it, because a lot of people don't understand why you [get plastic surgery]," she says, adding that her immediate results were far from what she'd see a few months later when everything settled in.

Once the shock factor wore off, Denise realized that "people are always going to say things," and now she's very pleased with her results, particularly that of her laser peel, which has left her with a "really fresh base again."

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"I feel a lot better and feel refreshed," she adds. "I don't care how many years it turned back. I just wanted to freshen up and just do what I could do at the moment to make the rest of my years age a little better."

Now her appearance matches her youthful energy. "Being a nurse for 32 years, I'm hoping to retire in the next five years. I feel like I'm still a kid inside. I have a really immature side, and then I have a really serious side. So having the facelift is a good thing."

Denise is looking to maintain her facelift with facial peels, laser treatments and Botox. She encourages older patients like herself who want to undergo plastic surgery to do it. "If someone's saying, 'Oh, wow, you should really fix that,' that shouldn't be your motivation. You've just got to want it."

Read the original article onPeople

Erling Haaland is likely to score a tap in goal in Norway's first appearance in the World Cup since 1998. But Visa wants fans to tap in, too.

The credit card company continues its longstanding partnership with FIFA and is the official Worldwide Payment Technology Partner of the tournament. They announced the "Tap In" campaign on Monday, May 18 to create a parallel between the tap-in goal, known as the easiest form of scoring, and how fans seamlessly tap their cards to pay for everything they need to enjoy the World Cup.

Jason Sudeikis is the star of a series of ads that shows how speed, security and fun are key elements of the tournament.The "Ted Lasso" actoris shown in various scenarios using his Visa card with his signature positivity and wittiness.

Frank Cooper, Visa's CMO, spoke on how the company was intentional about highlighting the speed of the World Cup and the security of the credit card while not sacrificing storytelling and the human element.

"That is exactly what we saw as our core challenge about a year ago," Cooper told USA TODAY Sports. "We can do something that is highly entertaining and inspirational, and there's a lot of value in that, because reigniting consumer passion around your brand is always a good thing.

"Our goal was a bit different. We did want to communicate the idea of trust and what underlies trust, and because we think that is going to be core. It's always been core to anything that involves money, by the way, but it's certainly increasingly core as you move into new forms of transaction, as fraud increases, as you know people want to make sure that they have zero liability, and so we want to communicate that.

"The question was, our challenge was: communicate that message, but put it in an entertaining wrapper. That was the goal.... A key unlock for us was Jason Sudeikis, and for us, Jason represented not just the character Ted Lasso, but he represented optimism, that anything is possible, that you can fulfill your dreams."

While Visa has its headquarters in Foster City, California outside of San Francisco, executives are careful to present it as a global company just like the World Cup is a global tournament. One of the ads makes this clear in a fun, lighthearted way.

Sudeikis asks to have a hot dog for every country where Visa is accepted (it's more than 200). He starts listing several nations: Australia, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, the United States, Ivory Coast and South Africa. A worker behind the counter hands him a hot dog for each country and the actor is about to keep rattling off countries, but the hot dogs run out.

Even though Cooper emphasizes that Visa is a global brand, he still has hopes that the United States hosting the World Cup will grow the love of the beautiful game in the country where American football is king. He points to the opportunity this tournament has through digital and social media as a potential means of helping Americans get involved in soccer.

Advertisement

"I think this could be an inflection point because of the excitement around this particular game," he said. "We may not have as many die-hard fans in the U.S., although that's increased a lot. We have more social fans, but in this one we're gonna have FOMO fans. People who feel like, 'I'm missing out on something. It's like a phenomenon descending upon three countries. I gotta be a part of it.' And once you kind of sense, feel the excitement, I think you get drawn into the sport."

Lamine Yamal, Jorge Campos, Andrés Cantor and, of course, Haaland are also involved in the campaign.

The ads are meant to lead to deeper fan engagement. Fans will be able to register online to win prizes throughout the tournament, including tickets to matches andJeff Hamilton jackets, which Cooper calls "beautiful" and "collectors items." When a tap-in goal is scored throughout the tournament, more prizes and features will be unlocked. There will also be collaborations with artists and immersive pop-ups at stadiums during the World Cup.

In 2024, Visa made its first global sports partnership in 15 years when it joined forces with Cash App tobecome a title sponsor of the Racing Bulls Formula 1 team.In February,Visa renewed and expanded the partnership, which also includes support for the Max Verstappen-led Red Bull Racing.

Cooper said that the motorsport series shares similar traits with the World Cup like speed and the pursuit of excellence that make both important partnerships for Visa. The Racing Bulls team is known for having some of the most exciting, thoughtful liveries in the sport, including when theycollaborated with Nigerian-British artist Slawn for the 2025 British Grand Prix.

"Whether they're winning at the moment or not matters less, even though I like winning more than I like losing. What matters is the values that they have, the pursuit of excellence that they all take, the constant state of improvement," Cooper said.

"One of the things that is core to our brand positioning is that we try to champion everyday progress, the people moving forward, and we think that happens in small steps. I don't think it happens in big leaps. It happens in small steps. One transaction at a time is kind of a representation of that.

"What we see in F1 is that. It's constantly tweaking, improving, trying to get better. You see it in all sports, honestly, but in Formula 1, and with Visa Cash App Red Bulls racing team, you see it every single day. They're just constantly trying to make small improvements to get toward excellence, and so for us that kind of reflects who we are as a brand."

Even with the success of the Formula 1 partnership, the World Cup is special for Visa. There are 104 matches in 16 cities across three countries and an expanded field of 48 teams for the 2026 competition. Cooper is looking forward to the opportunity of facilitating the "pop-up economy" around the tournament.

"This is our extravaganza, too, right?" he said. "It’s like the game itself, but it's also the World Cup of payments at the same time."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Visa enlists Jason Sudeikis for World Cup 'Tap In' campaign

MOSCOW, May 18 (Reuters) - Russia has high expectations for President Vladimir Putin's trip to China ‌this week, and the two sides will ‌use it to develop their "privileged partnership", the Kremlin said on ​Monday.

Putin is to visit China on Tuesday and Wednesday, less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump went there for talks with President Xi Jinping.

"We ‌have very serious ⁠expectations for this visit," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The so-called "no limits" partnership between ⁠China and Russia, the world's biggest producer of natural resources, has strengthened since the West imposed sanctions ​to punish ​Russia for the war ​in Ukraine.

Advertisement

"We and our ‌Chinese friends refer to it as a particularly privileged and strategic partnership," Peskov said.

The Russian delegation will include relevant deputy prime ministers, government ministers and company heads, he said.

Peskov was asked if plans ‌would be discussed for the ​proposed Power of Siberia 2 ​gas pipeline, which ​could one day deliver an additional ‌50 billion cubic metres (bcm) per ​year from ​Russia's Arctic gas fields via Mongolia to China.

"All issues that are on the economic agenda of ​our bilateral ‌relations will naturally be addressed," he replied.

(Reporting by ​Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing ​by Mark Trevelyan/Guy Faulconbridge)