Video taking off 17x its usual first day

Maduro and Cilia Flores charged with torture conspiracy, read live by Ryan Schmelz

LiveNOW's anchor read the unsealed indictment over a courtroom sketch, then cut live to the doors of Manhattan's federal courthouse.

Channel:

LiveNOW from FOX Story of October 9, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 374,438 views a day, 18 times a normal first day on this channel (21,411).

Former Venezuelan President Maduro charged with torture

Ryan Schmelz had breaking news, and he got straight to it: "Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is facing new charges from the United States, this time for torture."

The report runs under three minutes. Schmelz reads from an Associated Press post while the screen shows Jane Rosenberg's courtroom sketch of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The unsealed indictment charges both of them with conspiring to torture Venezuelans to keep their hold on power. It comes on top of the drug trafficking case the ousted leader is already fighting.

The picture then cuts to live footage of the entrance at 500 Pearl Street, Manhattan's federal courthouse, where a microphone waits at an empty podium. Schmelz closes by pointing back to a weekend interview with Representative Carlos Giménez, who called for free elections in Venezuela.

Twelve hours in, the clip had passed a quarter of a million views, far beyond what a Short here usually gathers in a whole first day. The comments came in roughly six times faster than usual. The most liked ones turn the question outward: whether the United States should be the one bringing such a case, and how its own past fits beside it.

It was a heavy news day for the channel. LiveNOW was also covering Hurricane Isaias closing in on the Gulf Coast and the Pentagon's plan to livestream the Fort Hood shooter's execution, and together the stories lifted it to about three times its usual daily views.

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