NBA star clear on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports
The inclusion of transgender athletes has been hotly debated in the sports world and beyond.
NBA star Jonathan Isaac has previously shared his thoughts on the topic. Last year, the Orlando Magic forward appeared to take particular issue with the White House’s commemoration of “Transgender Day of Visibility.”
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Events at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue took place on March 31, the same day as 2024 Easter Sunday. Isaac has a faith-based sports apparel and shoe line called “UNITUS” and he often pubically discusses his Christian conviction.
“They want you to hate! This helps no one and only promotes division,” he wrote. “They know exactly what they are doing.. we should be angry but shouldn’t lose the spirit of what tomorrow means! Don’t lose focus. Because He is risen there is hope for all.”
In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Isaac further explained his stance on transgender athletes’ eligibility in girls’ and women’s sports.
“It’s just a tough situation. There’s an ethic… there’s something that I believe is true. I believe that men and women are different. I believe that men do not belong in women’s sports, that’s a fundamental belief I hold. For reasons, one I’m a guy and I can understand the difference and the advantages that we have,” Isaac said.
“But at the same time there is a reality of the situation… there are people who are not in sports who are transgender (who) are trying to live their life the best way they know how. And they have this feeling of what they believe is right and who else is to say they are wrong in some sense.”
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Isaac acknowledged the humanity of the complex situation, but said his belief in the fundamental differences between men and women ultimately prompted him to draw a line in the sand.
“But where I stake my flag is, I believe that in order to cater to the feelings of this group, I would have to trample on the feelings of women to get there. And that’s where I say, ‘OK, that’s where I believe this is wrong’ and I would be willing to put my voice to it. I understand the humanity of the situation. I feel for the humanity of the situation. But at the end of the day, I believe it’s right to stand on the truth of men and women are different. And I wouldn’t want my daughter to have to compete against a transgender athlete (who) has gone through puberty or has testosterone.”
Isaac shares two daughters with his wife.
Shortly after President Donald Trump’s second term began, he signed an executive order effectively banning transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
The executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” was based on Title IX, part of a civil rights law passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs.
The order instructed the Department of Education to investigate academic institutions that failed to comply. If a school is deemed to be in noncompliance, federal funds could be withdrawn.
Elsewhere, the International Olympic Committee has decided to allow global federations that govern a variety of sports to create their respective eligibility rules. Under Trump’s executive order, the State Department is instructed to demand changes within the committee.
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The NCAA reacted to the executive order by introducing a sweeping new policy. The organization’s updated participation policy, which was announced in February, stated that only “student-athletes assigned female at birth” will be allowed to take part in intercollegiate athletic competitions.
The latest policy does permit “student-athletes assigned male at birth to practice with women’s teams and receive benefits like medical care.” However, those athletes are banned from any NCAA-sanctioned competitions.
In December 2024, NCAA President Charlie Baker told a Senate committee there were “less than 10” transgender college student athletes he was aware of at the time. Baker, who was the Republican governor of Massachusetts from 2015-2023, also confirmed that there are roughly “five hundred and ten thousand” athletes enrolled in more than 1,000 colleges and universities across all 50 states that the NCAA oversees.
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HHS whistleblower: Trump tackles migrant child trafficking issue left by Biden admin
Under the Biden administration, the U.S. unwittingly became a government sponsor of child trafficking, according to Health and Human Services whistleblower, Tara Rodas. She claimed thousands of reports of migrant child human trafficking were left uninvestigated until President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
On “Fox & Friends Weekend” Sunday, Rodas thanked host Rachel Campos-Duffy for bringing light to “what we now know was the Biden-Harris administration government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded child trafficking.”
Data from the Health and Human Services shows the Biden administration failed to investigate more than 7,000 reports of migrant child human trafficking, bringing the total backlog of reports to more than 65,000.
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Rodas went on to explain that the prior administration’s push to quickly process migrant children who entered the U.S. led to many being placed with sponsors who were not family and some who were active threats.
“The New York Times, if you can imagine, even revealed that, in some zip codes, less than 10% of the kids went to family members. This is unacceptable,” she said. “When I raised my hand to help the Biden administration with this crisis, I believed I was going to help place children in loving homes.”
“I had no idea that we were sending children to criminals, to traffickers, and to members of transnational criminal organizations. … The Biden-Harris administration turned vulnerable children over to high-level criminal actors.”
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Rodas attempted to take action on the issue in 2023, warning Congress that the U.S. had become the “middleman” in a transnational human trafficking operation.
She detailed a process that begins with children being recruited in their home country, then smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends with the U.S. government placing the children with sponsors who are criminals and traffickers.
But Trump, Rodas said, “will not stand for that.”
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“The new administration under President Trump has taken unprecedented action to find these children,” she said. “The Trump administration, miraculously, in just a four-month period, has gone through about 28% of that backlog.”
Rodas admitted there is more work to be done in locating and helping children that have been placed with criminals, but she expressed confidence that the Trump team will be successful.
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“They are out there using every mechanism that they have,” she said. “They are going to find these children.”
Husband cancels dinner party after wife leaves house over his ‘last-minute’ demands
A woman on Reddit is going viral for sharing with others the situation she feels her husband puts her in on a regular basis when he springs last-minute party plans on her — then criticizes her when she raises valid points about needing time for adequate preparation.
“My husband will invite his family and friends over without telling me until that day,” she wrote on the social media site.
“He then expects me to clean, run to the store and prep/cook everything.”
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She said she “finally just decided to leave the house the last time he told me because I only had four hours until their arrival. He canceled.”
She also wrote in her post, “The thing is, his family is constantly judging and talking about each other, so when he says, ‘It doesn’t matter, they don’t care,’ I know, and he knows, he’s full of it.”
The woman said this was not “just tidying the house. We are not regularly stocked [with] food or drinks to have people over,” she added.
“When I got home, I asked what he was planning on having for dinner, and he responded, ‘I don’t know, I guess it’s good that they aren’t coming over anymore.'”
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She continued that her husband then began “sulking,” calling her “the problem because I can’t go with the flow.”
She wrote, “I have told him multiple times I just need a couple of days’ notice to get things in order. But he insists I am just difficult, uptight and uncooperative.”
She then asked others for thoughts about the dilemma, with many people weighing in on the couple’s relationship.
Over 1,000 people shared comments — with some 12,000 people reacting overall to the couple’s situation.
“The fact that he canceled instead of doing the prep work and hosting on his own proves that he knows how much work is involved in ‘going with the flow,'” wrote one person.
“If he doesn’t want to do it, why should you?”
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Said another person, “Turn the tables. Tell him you’re having an impromptu barbecue and he needs to clean up the garden, including mowing the lawn, getting out tables and chairs and the BBQ, going out and buying all the food and having it all set up before folks start arriving at 4 p.m. And it’s his job because everyone knows barbecues and yard work are ‘man jobs.'”
“Turn the tables. Tell him you’re having an impromptu barbecue.”
This same individual said, “And when he says no, sulk — and when he puts pressure on you to clean and prepare food, do whatever he does to you when he invites these people over without warning and you ask for help.”
Another commenter weighed in with a few more thoughts.
“Unless he’s doing the bulk of this last-minute cleaning, shopping and cooking for guests (and it doesn’t sound like he is), then he’s treating you like staff and not like a partner.”
Wrote another person to the woman, “I chuckled when I read that you left the house. That is just perfect, and I would do it every single time.”
The person added, “Why do you have to do all the cooking, shopping and cleaning for his family?”
This same person said the woman is “definitely” not wrong for her actions or the way she feels.
“I’m sorry your husband is a big baby,” the individual wrote.
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“I hope you let him read all these comments.”
Yet another person wrote, “He is the one who is inviting [people] over. He needs to learn to be a good host. He invented the problem — he needs to fix it.”
Musk and Rogan fact-check Bono’s claim of deaths from Trump aid cuts
U2 frontman and longtime global activist Bono took a swing at the Trump administration disbanding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)) on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, blaming the cuts for a staggering 300,000 deaths.
And he was swiftly fact-checked by Rogan and Elon Musk in a takedown that lit up social media.
“This will f— you off,” Bono warned, claiming tens of thousands of tons of food are “rotting” in warehouses from Djibouti to Houston because of recent USAID cuts, and that the people who ran those warehouses have been fired.
“What is that? That’s not America, is it?”
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Rogan wasn’t having it.
“They’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” he said, acknowledging that while some aid groups do good work, the USAID system has been riddled with corruption.
“For sure, it was a money laundering operation. For sure, there was no oversight. … Trillions that are unaccounted for.”
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Reacting on X to a clip of the conversation, Elon Musk slammed Bono directly.
“He’s such a liar/idiot,” Musk wrote.
Musk, who has championed sharp cuts to what he sees as a bloated foreign aid machine, pushed for major USAID reforms under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) before his formal departure this week.
His response ignited debate online, with conservatives cheering for overdue accountability.
Popular online commentator “Catturd” posted that “I agree 100% with Elon Musk that Bono is an idiot and a liar.”
One commentator also wrote, “They’ve made this 300,000 number up and propagandized people with it.”
Another eagle-eyed X user posted, “Bono starts off by saying, ‘It’s not proven.’ So he’s lying.”
Bono’s 300,000 figure comes not from confirmed deaths, but from a speculative model built by Brooke Nichols, a mathematical health modeler at Boston University, projecting what could happen as a result of the cuts.
Nichols has said that the number is a projection, not a direct count, due to the absence of real-time tracking in many affected regions.
“The biggest uncertainties in all of these estimates are: 1) the extent to which countries and organizations have pivoted to mitigate this disaster (likely highly variable),” she wrote in The Washington Post. “And 2) which programs are actually still funded with funding actually flowing — and which aren’t.”
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The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Shakira’s tour in turmoil as fans fume over sixth concert cancelation
Shakira canceled a Saturday concert in Washington, D.C. – her sixth cancellation this year.
The popular Colombian singer was scheduled to perform this weekend at Nationals Park, although it seems the cancellation of her Thursday show in Boston at Fenway Park made it impossible for her and her team to make it to the show.
Capital Pride Alliance, the organization that had put together the event, shared in a statement on social media, “Like Shakira’s fans and our friends and family who have traveled from around the world to join us in DC this weekend, we are deeply disappointed that unforeseen circumstances have forced the cancellation of both this week’s concert in Boston and [Saturday]’s concert at Nationals Park.”
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The organization also shared another statement that was given to people who had purchased tickets to the event.
“Due to complications with the previous show in Boston, Shakira’s full tour production cannot be transported to Washington, D.C. in time for her scheduled performance at Nationals Park on Saturday, May 31,” that statement read. “As a result, the D.C. show has been canceled. Despite every effort to make it happen, it is not possible to move forward as planned.”
Shakira shared a message of her own to her Instagram followers, writing, “Nothing more painful for an artist than having to cancel two sold-out stadium shows like Boston and DC for reasons beyond one’s control.”
“Thank you for being there in the good times and the not so good,” she continued. “We’ve cruised together through every bump in the road, and you always take me to the other side. Los quiero con todo.”
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In February, Shakira launched her “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” world tour in South America. Shortly after, she canceled a concert in Lima, Peru – her third show of the tour – because she’d been hospitalized with an “abdominal issue.”
A week later, a concert in Colombia was postponed when the roof of the stage “suffered damage that puts at risk the safety of the artist, her staff and, most importantly, that of the audience” while a production team was assembling her show, the promotor explained in a statement translated by Billboard.
At the beginning of March, she was set to perform two shows in Santiago, Chile, both of which were canceled just hours before the first was slated to begin. In a lengthy statement she shared on social media at the time, translated from Spanish to English by People, she explained in part that there was an issue with the stage assembly, and that it was “not stable enough to guarantee the safety of my band, dancers, fans and me.”
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“There are two things I would never compromise: the security of my team and that of my fans, and I would never offer a show below the quality standards that you all deserve,” she wrote. “My heart is broken in a thousand pieces to not be able to perform for you due to reasons out of my control.”
Stage safety concerns were once again to blame for the cancellation of her Thursday performance in Boston at Fenway Park. A representative for Live Nation told Fox News Digital, “During a routine pre-show check, structural elements were identified as not being up to standard, so the shows were canceled. All team members are safe.”
After the cancellation of Saturday’s show in Washington, D.C., social media users began discussing what seems to be a developing trend for the tour.
“This is just disrespectful to her fans… last minute every time,” one person wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
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Another wrote, “I love shakira to death but i can’t accept any excuses. no matter how many technical issues they bring out. this is is just her fault. cancelling your concert on the show day is just unacceptable. idk if you know how this have impacted your image.”
“I can understand one or two shows, but 6 is ridiculous!” another post read. “Figure it out before or get a regular stage that doesn’t extend on the floor since it seems like that is the issue here.”
Others were upset at the news, including one fan who wrote, “Can’t believe this ! Ughhhh! My entire weekend was planned around this show.”
Another insisted, “All I know is, Shakira will never cancel or reschedule if things are up to her.”
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Musk’s departure marks new chapter for government efficiency in border security
As the Department of Government Efficiency enters a new era with the departure of Elon Musk on Friday, it has caused numerous changes in recent months on matters of immigration and border security.
“DOGE has helped to transform the Federal government by eliminating waste and bloat that has been ignored for years. DOGE is playing a key role in eliminating millions of taxpayer money being misspent, including contracts for illegal alien facilities that sat empty during the Biden Border invasion and funding for hotel rooms to house illegal gang members. DOGE’s mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse continues!” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, told Fox News Digital in a statement on Friday.
In February, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they had gutted an $83 million contract for “an empty illegal alien facility during an invasion at the southern border” and the $80 million in FEMA funding to provide lodging for illegal immigrants in New York City, like the Roosevelt Hotel.
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In March, a contract to resume wall construction along seven miles of the border was cleared by DOGE.
“Secretary Noem announced that we officially awarded the first [DOGE] approved contract to restart construction on President Trump’s border wall,” DHS posted on March 17.
DOGE also posted to X in April that it had found that many illegal immigrants who were on the FBI’s terror watchlist and those who have a criminal history were taking out public benefits. Four on the terror watchlist and 901 other “paroled aliens” were “collecting Medicaid,” 41 received unemployment benefits, 22 got student loans from the federal government and 409 got a “net” tax refund in 2024, according to the department. The cost of the tax refunds was $751,000, Medicaid cost $276,000, and the student loans totaled out to $280,000, the department said.
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“Under the Biden administration, it was routine for Border Patrol to admit aliens into the United States with no legal status and minimal screening,” the post stated. “So far, CBP identified a subset of 6.3k individuals paroled into the United States since 2023 on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center watchlist or with criminal records. These paroles have since been terminated with immediate effect. Despite having no other legal status, paroled aliens are able to file for work authorization and receive social security numbers.”
Outside of immigration and border security, DHS said the Coast Guard is expected to save $32.7 million by scrapping an information technology system that was deemed “ineffective.” In a video posted in May about the partnership between DOGE and DHS, it said the funds are going to “frontline operations.”
“Another win for government efficiency at DHS!” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to Fox News Digital in April.
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“Continuing the crucial work of DOGE, the Coast Guard eliminated an ineffective IT program, saving over $32 million and focusing its resources where they’re most needed to protect the homeland. The USCG continues to deliver on the President’s priorities, maximizing its efficiency while securing our borders and maritime approaches,” Noem added.
DHS and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also recently announced a planned crackdown on illegal immigrants’ use of public housing benefits.
And last month, DHS announced that, in the spirit of cracking down on “waste, fraud and abuse,” it was ending FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program.
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“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters,” a FEMA spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need.”
Fox News reached out to DHS for additional comment. The changes come as President Donald Trump made major policy changes during the early days of his second term, which has led to a sharp decrease in encounters at the border and a continued crackdown on illegal immigrants with a criminal background in the U.S. interior.
In total, DOGE has estimated it has saved $175 billion for taxpayers so far.