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California farming mogul in bitter divorce proceedings arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife

Published

5 hours ago

December 25, 2025

A prominent California farmer was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of murder in the shooting death of his estranged wife in a remote mountain community in Arizona, the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office said.

Michael Abatti, 63, was arrested in El Centro and booked into jail on a first-degree murder charge. He is awaiting extradition to Arizona.

Authorities say they believe he drove to Arizona on Nov. 20 and fatally shot Kerri Ann Abatti, 59, before returning home to California. She was found dead in her family’s tree-shrouded vacation home in Pinetop, Arizona, where she moved after splitting with her husband.

Attorneys for Michael Abatti said in a Wednesday statement that he “has devoted himself to his family, to his work, and to his community” and will be entering a not-guilty plea.

His attorneys added they are “deeply concerned” about his health, as he suffers from numerous medical conditions requiring ongoing treatment and access to specialized care.

Authorities searched his home in far Southern California on Dec. 2 as part of the investigation into his wife’s death.

El Centro is a city of 44,000 people just minutes from the Mexican border in the crop-rich Imperial Valley, which is the biggest user of Colorado River water and known for growing leafy greens, melons and forage crops.

Michael Abatti comes from a long line of farmers in the region bordering Arizona, and his grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was among the region’s early settlers. His father, Ben, helped start the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association, and the Abatti name is known throughout the region and tied to farming enterprises, scholarship funds and leadership in local boards and groups.

Michael Abatti has grown onions, broccoli, cantaloupes and other crops in the Imperial Valley and served on the board of the powerful Imperial Irrigation District from 2006 to 2010.

Michael and Kerri Abatti were married in 1992 and had three children.

Kerri Abatti is a descendant of one of the first Latter-day Saints families to settle Pinetop in the 1880s. The community, located 190 miles (305 kilometers) northeast of Phoenix in the White Mountains, was briefly called Penrodville after Kerri’s forbearers before adopting the Pinetop name.

The couple split in 2023 and Kerri Abatti filed for divorce in proceedings that were pending in California at the time of her death.

The Abattis were sparring over finances with Kerri telling the court the couple had lived an upper-class lifestyle during more than three decades of marriage. They owned a large home in California, a vacation home in Pinetop and ranch land in Wyoming and vacationed in Switzerland, Italy and Hawaii while sending their children to private school, she said.

After the split, Kerri was granted $5,000 a month in temporary spousal support but last year asked for an increase to $30,000, saying she couldn’t maintain her standard of living as she quit her job as a bookkeeper and office manager for the family farm in 1999 to stay home with the couple’s three children. Kerri, who previously held a real estate license in Arizona, also asked for an additional $100,000 in attorney’s fees, court filings show.

“I am barely scraping by each month, am handling all of the manual labor on our large property in Arizona and continuing its upkeep,” she wrote in court filings earlier this year, adding she was living near her elderly parents. Kerri said she also needed to buy a newer car because her 2011 vehicle had more than 280,000 miles (450,600 kilometers) on it and sorely needed repairs.

Michael Abatti said in a legal filing that he couldn’t afford the increase after two bad farming years took a toll on his monthly income. He said European shifts in crop-buying to support war-plagued Ukrainian farmers and rising shipping costs were to blame along with an unusually cold and wet winter.

He said in mid-2024 it cost $1,000 to grow an acre of wheat that he could sell for $700, and that he was receiving about $22,000 a month to run the farm as the business struggled to pay its creditors in full.

“The income available at this time does not warrant any increase in the amount to which the parties stipulated, let alone an increase to $30,000 per month,” Lee Hejmanowski, Michael Abatti’s family law attorney, wrote in court papers.

Days later, Michael Abatti agreed to increase temporary spousal support payments to $6,400 a month, court filings show.

He studied in the agricultural business management program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins before returning to California, according to a 2023 book about water issues written by his college friend, Craig Morgan, titled “The Morality of Deceit.”

In 2009, Michael Abatti almost died from an infection caused by a flesh-eating bacteria and was hospitalized and placed in a medically induced coma for treatment, Morgan wrote in the book.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Business

Logan Paul auctions off $5.3 million Pokémon card

Published

13 minutes ago

December 25, 2025

Jace Porter

We’ve all heard the traditional advice that the best investments are those made in the stock market, saving in a 401(k), and buying a house. But younger generations have started touting nontraditional investments like buying a Birkin bag or other collectibles as a surefire way to bring in extra bucks.

Influencer and WWE wrestler Logan Paul recently said going beyond normal investments can be worth it.

“If you’re young, there are ways to spend and invest your money in ways that might mean more to you than in a traditional conservative environment like the stock market,” he said on Fox Business’s “The Big Money Show” on Tuesday.

And Paul has certainly gone down the nontraditional path for investing: He recently put up a rare Pokémon card for auction that he bought in 2022 for $5.3 million. The former WWE United States Champion actually used to wear the card—which he says is “the rarest card in the world” and the “Holy Grail”—around his neck during competitions. The card is a PSA-graded 10 Pikachu Illustrator, and only a few dozen copies exist worldwide. But Paul’s card is the only one to receive a 10/10 grade from Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA).

Paul said he plans to auction the card in early 2026 and estimates it will sell for between $7 million and $12 million, which would bank him about $2 million to $7 million. He also argued collectibles like Pokémon cards have “outperformed” the stock market during the last two decades.

“If you have the money, don’t be afraid to take a risk, especially if you’re young,” Paul said.

Are collectibles really a good investment?

According to global wealth management firm AES, collectibles like wine, manuscripts, vintage cars, rare pieces of art, and more can produce a “reasonable” return for investors, but they often don’t come with the same long-term gains of investing in stocks.

Between 1900 and 2012, collectibles produced a nominal annual return of 6.4% and a real return of 2.4%, according to the AES report.

“Although the return is reasonable, it’s far lower than the long-term rewards of investing in the equity market,” AES CEO Sam Instone wrote. But, “that’s not to say these collectible items are not for certain investors.”

Still, Gen Z men have become obsessed with investing in these collectibles, which some argue will beat Nvidia stock and the S&P 500. And they could have a point: Pokémon cards have seen the largest long-term increase in value among all card categories. They’re up 3,261% in the past 20 years, according to data provided to Fortune’s Preston Fore from Card Ladder. Even a one-year investment is up 46%, which is higher than Nvidia’s 35% jump and the S&P 500’s 17% year-to-date increase.

“The trading card hobby has entered a new era, driven by technology, innovation, community, and a great balance of modern creativity–with new sets, storylines and characters–alongside good old nostalgia,” Adam Ireland, VP and GM of global collectibles at eBay, previously told Fortune. He also said eBay users searched for “Pokemon” nearly 14,000 times per hour in 2024.

Other collectibles like the Hermes Birkin bag have caught the attention of young investors, who have argued buying one can be more valuable than investing in gold. But recent reports have shown these rare handbags don’t have the same return-on-investment they once did. The average resale premium for Birkin and Kelly bags—a metric that compares the auction price to its retail cost—has fallen from 2.2 times its original value in 2022 to 1.4 times as of November, according to Bernstein Research’s Secondhand Pricing Tracker. To put that in perspective, a Birkin bag originally bought for $10,000 and resold in 2022 would have cost more than $22,000, but a bag originally retailing for the same price and resold today would be worth just $14,000.

Overall, although investing in collectibles can end in a big payday, they can also be a very risky investment because of liquidity risks, concentration risks, costs and upkeep, the potential for a bubble, and tax treatment, according to an analysis by The Economic Times.

“It’s also true that some people generate income regularly buying and selling collectibles,” according to Consumers Credit Union. “However, fortunes are determined by the whims of buyers along with the rising and falling popularity of particular items. While the stock market may have a down year, over time it trends to higher value.”

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Amazon’s Alexa chief predicts an end to doom scrolling: the next generation is ‘going to just think differently’

Published

2 hours ago

December 25, 2025

Jace Porter

Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of devices and services, believes the reign of the smartphone screen may be nearing a tipping point. Speaking at Fortune Brainstorm AI in San Francisco, he suggested that a growing fatigue with social media “doom scrolling” is paving the way for a new era of “ambient intelligence”—one driven by a generation that interacts with technology in fundamentally different ways,.

According to Panay, the future of consumer technology isn’t about better apps, but about making the technology disappear into the background.

“There’s a whole younger generation coming up that I think at some point they get tired of doom scrolling,” he observed, noting that many young people feel “stuck” when it comes to social media. He argued that this demographic, having been raised in an emerging “AI world,” will demand interactions that bypass the friction of traditional computing.

“They’re going to just think differently,” Panay predicted. “You’ve got to make sure you have products in their pockets, on their bodies, in their homes that they don’t expect… [but] expect to connect seamlessly.”

The death of the ‘app’ experience

Panay described a user experience that eliminates the need to look at a screen to solve daily problems. “It’s such a joy because there’s no opening a phone, opening the app, clicking, finding … none of it,” he said. “You just ask the question and you get it back”.

He illustrated this shift with a personal anecdote about a family debate over which restaurant to visit. Rather than everyone retreating to their corners to stare at their phones—a moment that usually disrupts family connection—they simply asked Alexa. The AI recalled a conversation from months prior regarding a restaurant they had wanted to try, settling the debate instantly. “It’s such a simple, delightful moment of when ambient intelligence is around you,” Panay noted.

To support this screen-free future, Amazon is aggressively experimenting with new hardware. While Panay declined to get into specific product roadmaps, he hinted that the current smart speakers and phones are not the endgame.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the next form factor yet on where AI devices are going to go,” he said, adding that Amazon has a “lab full of ideas,” though most ideas won’t make it from prototype to reality.

When pressed on whether Amazon would release wearables or glasses to compete with recent partnerships like that of OpenAI and Jony Ive’s io, Panay pointed to Amazon’s portfolio, including the recent acquisition of a company that makes a wristband. “We have wearables, we have earbuds, we’ve had glasses in the past.” He added that he won’t reveal what’s coming next, but insisted, “I think you’re going to want your assistant with you everywhere you go.”

Security concerns come hand in hand with these sort of advances, too. When asked by an audience member about the risks of placing listening devices in homes, Panay described security as a non-negotiable agreement. “I feel like it’s a contract with our customers, period. We break that contract, we lose our customers.” He emphasized that Amazon does not “cut one corner” regarding security protocols, describing it as the “first premise” of their product design.

The New ‘Alexa Plus‘

The bridge to this ambient future is the newly updated “Alexa Plus,” which Panay describes as a shift from a command-based tool to a comprehensive “home manager” and “butler.” Unlike “legacy Alexa,” which often required users to navigate complex setups, the new AI possesses “unlimited depth of understanding” and contextual memory.

“If I’ve asked it two or three questions in the last couple of weeks … the understanding, the personality will just change and say it understands what I’m looking for,” he explained.

For Panay, the ultimate goal is to return time to the user, moving them away from the distraction of screens and toward meaningful activity. “I think learning is one of the finest arts on the planet … and I think reading does that,” he said, positioning the shift away from doom scrolling as not just a technological evolution, but a cultural one.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Business

Christmas 500 years ago was a drunken 6-week feast that may have been considerably better than the modern holiday, medieval historian says

Published

2 hours ago

December 25, 2025

Jace Porter

Beer and wine were major components of the meal. By our standards, peasants drank a lot, although the alcohol content of the beer and wine was lower than today’s versions. They often napped before returning to work. In the evening, they ate a light meal, perhaps only bread, and socialized for a while.

They went to bed within a few hours of darkness, so how long they slept depended on the season. On average, they slept about eight hours, but not consecutively. They awoke after a “first sleep” and prayed, had sex or chatted with neighbors for somewhere between half an hour and two hours, then returned to sleep for another four hours or so.

Peasants did not have privacy as we think of it; everyone often slept in one big room. Parents made love with one another as their children slept nearby. Married couples shared a bed, and one of their younger children might sleep with them, though infants had cradles. Older children likely slept two to a bed.

A musician entertains a group of peasant farmers. duncan1890/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

Dreaming of a medieval Christmas

Life certainly wasn’t easy. But the stretches of time for rest and leisure were enviable.

Today, many people start thinking about Christmas after Thanksgiving, and any sort of holiday spirit fizzles by early January.

In the Middle Ages, this would have been unheard of.

Advent – the period of anticipation and fasting that precedes Christmas – began with the Feast of St. Martin.

Back then, it took place 40 days before Christmas; today, it’s the fourth Sunday before it. During this period, Western Christians observed a fast; while less strict than the one for Lent, it restricted meat and dairy products to certain days of the week. These protocols not only symbolized absence and longing, but they also helped stretch out the food supply after the end of the harvest and before meats were fully cured.

Christmas itself was known for feasting and drunkenness – and it lasted nearly six weeks.

Dec. 25 was followed by the 12 Days of Christmas, ending with the Epiphany on Jan. 6, which commemorates the visit of the Magi to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Gifts, often in the form of food or money, were exchanged, though this was more commonly done on New Year’s Day. Game birds, ham, mince pies and spiced wines were popular fare, with spices thought to help warm the body.

Though Christmas officially celebrates the birth of Jesus, it was clearly associated with pre-Christian celebrations that emphasized the winter solstice and the return of light and life. This meant that bonfires, yule logs and evergreen decorations were part of the festivities. According to tradition, St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in 1223.

Christmas ended slowly, with the first Monday after Epiphany being called “Plough Monday” because it marked the return to agricultural work. The full end of the season came on Feb. 2 – called Candlemas – which coincides with the older pagan holiday of Imbolc. On this day, candles were blessed for use in the coming year, and any decorations left up were thought to be at risk of becoming infested with goblins.

Many people today gripe about the stresses of the holidays: buying presents, traveling, cooking, cleaning and bouncing from one obligation to the next. There’s a short window to get it all done: Christmas Day is the only day many workplaces are required to give off.

Meanwhile, I’ll be dreaming of a medieval Christmas.

Bobbi Sutherland, Associate Professor, Department of HIstory, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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