Zelenskyy pushes for ‘dignified end’ to war as US hosts crucial Florida meeting
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Ukrainian negotiators Sunday in Florida to build on the recent peace talks in Geneva, and work through the remaining details of the agreement reached last week.
“The end goal is obviously not just the end of the war. Obviously, that’s essential and fundamental. We want to see the end of the killing and the death and the suffering, and I’m sure the Ukrainian side, I know they do as well,” said Rubio in an opening statement. “They want peace. But it’s also about securing an end to the war that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity at real prosperity.”
Rustem Umerov, the head of the Ukrainian delegation and secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, thanked his American counterparts and Trump for their efforts to end the war, saying he was looking forward to a productive meeting.
The Florida meeting comes after Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s top negotiator, resigned Friday after anti-corruption agencies raided his home. Ukraine has been embroiled in an alleged $100 million kickback corruption scheme linked to the state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom.
ZELENSKYY WARNS UKRAINE FACES ‘DIFFICULT CHOICE’ AS US PEACE PLAN HITS MAJOR HURDLE
“The dialogue based on the Geneva points will continue. Diplomacy remains active. The American side is demonstrating a constructive approach, and in the coming days it is feasible to flesh out the steps to determine how to bring the war to a dignified end,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “The Ukrainian delegation has the necessary directives, and I expect the guys to work in accordance with clear Ukrainian priorities.”
Zelenskyy wrote on X that Umerov would lead efforts to outline the steps to end the war and to hammer out the remaining elements of the peace framework.A U.S. official told Fox News Tuesday that Kyiv agreed to a peace deal, with only minor points still to be resolved.
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Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow this week to discuss the updated peace framework that reportedly stands at 19 points instead of the original 28, which was criticized by European leaders as too favorable to the Kremlin.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested Moscow could reject the White House’s latest Ukraine peace deal framework if it does not uphold the “spirit and letter” of the understandings reached at the August Alaska summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin.
He warned that if the terms of the “key understandings” are “extinguished” then the situation would become “fundamentally different.”
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Russia has maintained its maximalist demands in negotiations, insisting Ukraine be barred from joining NATO and required to give up the rest of the Donbas region as part of any agreement.
The Kremlin has kept up its drone and missile barrages even as negotiations continue to move forward. Zelenskyy said Sunday that over the past week alone, Russia fired nearly 1,400 attack drones, 1,100 guided aerial bombs and 66 missiles at Ukraine.
Ex-SJSU volleyball star suffers ‘severe’ health problem tied to trans teammate scandal
Sunday marked exactly one year since Blaire Fleming and Brooke Slusser’s final college volleyball game for San Jose State University.
They had been playing together, traveling together and doing team bonding activities for months even after Slusser took legal action, alleging she was never told Fleming was a biological male transgender athlete. Before that, they had already shared hotel rooms and changing spaces for a whole season in 2023 before Slusser said she even found out.
Slusser now says the panic and stress from that period in her life caused her to develop an eating disorder, which led to severe anorexia that got so bad she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months.
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“From the stress and how anxious I was every single day, I just wasn’t eating really at all,” Slusser told Fox News Digital.
“I went from around 160 to 128 [lbs] in that one semester. It definitely isn’t healthy for someone of my size to be that weight, and I ended up losing my menstrual cycle for nine months. So it was definitely severe.”
Slusser is 5-foot-11.
People at home started to take notice of the issue.
“When I came home, some of my friends and family were very worried about me,” she added. “Some of my friends were just like, ‘You always looked tired all the time. You always look dead…’ I was able to come home three days that fall semester my senior year, and I had a friend later on tell me that when I saw her, she went home and cried to her mom, because she was so worried about me, just because she could tell I looked so unhealthily skinny.”
She said some days she ate as few as 400 calories, then still went out to court to compete with her teammates, and some days she went out to do news interviews on her battle to “save women’s sports.”
“Every day was really hard… the hardest thing to do was, some days I would be waking and I’d have to hop on two to three interview calls with news outlets… then get ready, go to practice go to lift… get pulled into meetings with my coaches about how I’m just such a terrible person and all of these things, and then go straight from that right back into interviews,” she said.
But once the season and semester ended, her parents saw the physical impact the situation took on her, and demanded she come home to Texas.
“As soon as the season was over, she came home for Christmas, and we were like, ‘You’re not going back,'” her father, Paul Slusser, told Fox News Digital. He told his daughter, “‘You can go get your stuff next summer when your lease is up, and stay here.'”
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The father was particularly concerned about the way the media was portraying his daughter, and how that influenced her peers’ perception of her.
“She was the enemy. The news vilified her. All the media outlets vilified her. And the students were reading that kind of stuff about her.”
Her mother, Kim Slusser, said she was “devastated” when she saw her daughter’s physical state last Christmas.
“When I found out how bad everything really was and really saw her at Christmas time when she came home… I was devastated. I couldn’t sleep. I was having nightmares,” Kim Slusser said.
Brooke herself also began to have recurring nightmares when she moved back into her parents’ house.
In one dream, Brooke envisioned herself back at practice in the San Jose State gymnasium, and then getting called to a private meeting by head coach Todd Kress.
“I woke up sobbing in the middle of the night,” she said.
“I definitely struggled a lot with my sleep and being able to fall asleep and stay asleep during the night. I was taking melatonin to help me sleep. At that time, I was only getting two to four hours of sleep per night.”
Once winter break was over, and what was supposed to be her final semester began, Brooke attempted to complete her courses online.
Her parents said she began online classes, but dropped them shortly later. As a Division I scholarship athlete, dropping the classes resulted in her losing the scholarship, and her family had to pay for the full semester’s worth of tuition out of pocket, and her housing.
“We had to pay, basically her mortgage and her apartment for the rest of the semester. So it was a pretty large financial burden on us when that happened,” Paul Slusser said.
EX-SJSU VOLLEYBALL COACH OPENS UP ON LAWSUIT AFTER LOSING JOB AMID TRANS ATHLETE SCANDAL
The family will have to pay out of pocket again for additional tuition, as Brooke still hasn’t finished her degree. She is no longer an SJSU student, and will finish her education at another school.
A former scholarship athlete, Slusser previously imagined that, at that point in her life, she would have a degree and a license in dietetics, preparing to start her own business in the dietetics field.
But instead, she had to focus on self-repair.
The family claims they didn’t consult any doctors and the daughter didn’t use any medicine, except the melatonin for sleep help.
“My family, and so do I, we don’t really believe on leaning on medication for those type of things,” Brooke said. “The reason I was able to heal from everything is because of God.”
In one of her final Sundays at San Jose last fall, she randomly decided to go to church, just to get out of the house.
“I just broke down in tears during worship, and that was the day that I decided to give my life back to Christ,” Slusser said.
She started going to church more when she was back home, then got officially baptized in the final week of June. This past summer, she also moved to North Carolina, and is working as a youth girls’ volleyball coach.
Kim Slusser said her daughter also formed a romantic relationship with a guy she went to high school with, which has also helped her recovery.
“He was a high school friend, and now they’re dating, and he was someone she leaned on during the hard times at San Jose,” Kim Slusser said.
By this Thanksgiving, Slusser and her parents say she has recovered physically and mentally from the situation, as they navigate the completion of her college degree.
“She just got back in her comfort zone, the weight came back on, she went back to her comfort zone, got her period back,” Paul Slusser said.
None of the physical and mental damage over the last year has deterred Brooke from fighting in the national conflict to “save women’s sports.”
She is a plaintiff in two Title IX lawsuits, citing her experience at SJSU, including Riley Gaines’ suit against the NCAA, which partially advanced past motions to dismiss in September. Slusser is the leader of a lawsuit against the Mountain West and representatives of SJSU along with 10 other current and former women’s volleyball players.
SJSU athletic director Jeff Konya answered Fox News Digital in July on whether he is “satisfied” with how the university handled the controversy involving Fleming and Slusser in 2024.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
President Donald Trump‘s Department of Education (ED) is in the midst of an investigation against the university for its handling of the controversy. The department launched the investigation on Feb. 6, simultaneous with a similar probe against the University of Pennsylvania over its handling of the incident involving trans swimmer Lia Thomas in 2022.
ED came to a resolution with UPenn over that issue on July 1. Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News Digital that day that the department’s investigation into SJSU “will continue.”
Slusser is eager to see the potential outcome of that investigation, and its impacts on the university officials that oversaw the situation she was involved in at San Jose State.
“Those people need to have some consequences,” Slusser said.
What about Blaire?
Fleming has been rarely active on social media in the past year. The athlete posted an Instagram story appearing to celebrate graduation from SJSU in May, and has made two posts appearing to show exotic vacations.
In a New York Times Magazine profile piece in April, Fleming admitted to feeling “suicidal,” saying the season was “the darkest time in my life.”
Slusser told Fox News Digital of Fleming’s suicidal thoughts, “If that’s what [Fleming] was going through, that’s terrible.”
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The outlet also reported that Fleming, who often received hateful or threatening messages, cried “almost every night.”
Fleming is not named as a defendant in any of Slusser’s lawsuits. Fox News Digital has reached out to Fleming to request an interview and for a direct response to Slusser’s statements.
Fox News Digital has reached out to SJSU for a response.
Walmart shoppers rage after waiting hours for a novelty box of noodles
A Black Friday novelty bulk box of Kraft Mac & Cheese sold out almost instantly, according to shoppers.
The 65-Inch Mac Friday Box, which was sold at Walmart and went on sale online at midnight on Black Friday, was shaped to look like a flat-screen television (a Black Friday staple) and sold for $19.37, a reference to the year Kraft Mac & Cheese was introduced.
The box contained 65 regular-size boxes of the children’s favorite, making the Black Friday deal a 75% discount. Kraft Mac & Cheese normally retails for around $1.29.
“Never went in stock,” one TikTok commenter wrote underneath influencer SnachwithZach’s post on the deal.
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A second wrote, “12:02…. Not working. I stayed up for this.”
A third mac and cheese fan lamented, “for anyone curious, this did not last 5 seconds. no, I’m not kidding.”
Another wrote, “Sold out as soon as I added one to my cart.”
The box was not only shaped like a flat-screen. It also jokingly said it was part of the “65 Original Flavor Series” and featured “4K noodles.”
Its description said, “Harnessing cutting-edge flavor technology, this box delivers over 4,000 perfectly calibrated noodles, tuned for maximum cheesiness,” according to the Food Network.
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As of Saturday evening, clicking the Mac Friday box deal at Walmart.com reveals a broken link that says, “We couldn’t find this page.”
FOX Business has reached out to Kraft and Walmart for comment.
Top Biden officials reportedly raised concerns over autopen, pardons
Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen appeared on Fox News’ “Saturday in America” with host Kayleigh McEnany this weekend, where the two discussed a September report from Axios alleging that top Biden administration officials questioned and criticized the way the former president’s team handled pardons and made use of an autopen in the waning days of his White House term.
The Sept. 6 report has resurfaced after President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will be terminating all documents allegedly signed by former President Joe Biden via autopen.
While McEnany acknowledged that autopen use is “par for the course” in the White House and that “every president does it,” she argued that the Biden administration’s use of the tool was unusual, pointing to the Axios report as evidence.
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McEnany, who formerly served as press secretary during Trump’s first administration, noted that the report claimed the staff secretary responsible for managing Biden’s “paper flow” repeatedly requested additional details to confirm the president’s intentions with the autopen.
“It wasn’t ordinary for me to question whether Trump approved something or not,” she added before asking Thiessen if he had the same experience while serving as President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter.
Thiessen pointed out that there was a ruling by the Office of Legal Counsel which deemed the use of autopen to be legal as long as the president intended to use it, and shared a story that revealed the great lengths Bush went to in order to avoid using the tool.
“Bush didn’t want to have any doubts about things. So I remember once there was a continuing resolution to keep the government open, and he was at the APEC summit out in Asia, and they actually took an aide and flew the bill out to Asia so that he could physically sign the bill,” he recalled. “So, you know, that’s how seriously [Bush] took this.”
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The former Bush staffer argued that the problem for Biden is that “everybody now knows he was non compos mentis” — meaning not of sound mind — and that there were “people making decisions for him all the time.”
“The staff secretary clearly had concerns about this and was aware of it and wasn’t sure that Biden was actually issuing these orders,” he continued. “And so, you know, the pardon is a power of the president himself. And to have pardons signed by autopen when the people running the autopen weren’t even sure the president had agreed to pardon somebody, that’s pretty bad stuff.”
Closing out the segment, McEnany added that the Department of Justice (DOJ) also questioned the clemency process under the Biden administration, which set a presidential record for the largest number of pardons and commutations granted to individuals.
A person familiar with the clemency process told Axios that after Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Dec. 1, 2024, “there was a mad dash to find groups of people that he could then pardon — and then they largely didn’t run it by the Justice Department to vet them.”
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In September, the outlet reported that several senior Justice Department officials raised concerns with the White House counsel’s office regarding the process to pardon individuals.
Additionally, senior Biden White House officials pushed back internally on requests to use the autopen, according to Axios, which cited emails it obtained.
It said Biden White House staff secretary Stef Feldman repeatedly asked for more information and confirmation of Biden’s intentions with the autopen.
“When did we get [Biden’s] approval of this?” Feldman reportedly wrote in a Jan. 7 email regarding the use of autopen to sign an executive order.
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“I’m going to need email from… original chain confirming [Biden] signs off on the specific documents when they are ready,” she was cited by Axios as writing in a Jan. 16 email about using autopen to commute sentences linked to crack cocaine cases.
Doctor reveals the 2 biggest inflammation triggers hiding in Americans’ diets
Nutrition can be the key to warding off disease — even devastating conditions like cancer.
That’s according to doctors such as Dr. Frank Dumont, an internal medicine physician and executive medical director of Virta Health, a Colorado-based group that tackles metabolic health through diet.
In an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital, Dumont said Americans have experienced an increase in obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and cancers in the last several decades, which “probably has a lot to do with our lifestyle.”
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“We know food is a big part of that… our diet has changed dramatically over the past few decades,” he said.
“A lot of the foods we’re eating are much more processed. They’re much higher in simple carbohydrates and simple sugars than they ever were previously.”
These foods have been linked to an increase in insulin and inflammation, which leads to health complications, Dumont warned.
To lower the risk of chronic disease, he encouraged people to make the following simple swaps.
“It depends on the individual situation,” he said. “The better you know your body, the better you can make decisions and make these types of swaps.”
1. Choose real fruit over fruit juice
To help meet the goal of consuming more fiber and natural products, Dumont recommends eating real fruit instead of drinking fruit juice, which is highly processed.
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“Fruit juice can have some benefits — it has minerals, vitamins and micronutrients, but the bottom line is that it’s more processed, and you’ve eliminated a lot of the fiber that is supposed to go hand in hand with the fruit sugar,” he said.
Dumont added that he does not believe in “villainizing” fruit, as it has been scrutinized for being high in sugar.
“There’s a lot of good health in fruit,” he said. “It depends on that person’s individual metabolism. If someone is so metabolically sick, so insulin resistant… even some very healthy fruits can be more than their body can handle.”
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“But for most people, and especially earlier on when you’re not as metabolically sick, the wonderful thing about fruit is that you’re actually packaging all of that sugar up in the fiber.”
2. Opt out of breaded chicken
Making this one small swap, even at a fast-food restaurant, can improve overall health, according to Dumont.
Rather than selecting a menu item heavy in carbohydrates, like a breaded chicken sandwich, choosing a chicken salad instead makes for a more well-rounded meal.
He also recommended choosing chicken that is grilled rather than fried and breaded.
“You put that on top of some lettuce with a good healthy dressing, and it can actually be extremely healthy eating out on the road at a fast-food restaurant,” he said.
Food as medicine
Dumont said he’s seen many patients lose their fight against chronic disease when treated only with medication.
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“I was seeing people get worse and worse, and that was really disheartening for me,” he said. “What I found later in my career is the power of nutrition and lifestyle. And it’s something that, honestly, I have really been trained to be pessimistic about.”
In his training, Dumont said he was taught patients rarely sustain healthy lifestyle changes, and that moving to medicines and procedures should be “quickly” encouraged.
“I found that was not true,” he said. “If you gave people the right information, and they were able to implement it, you could help them do it in a way that was actually enjoyable and doable for them.”
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“The power of that was more than the power of the medicines I had been using.”
The doctor said he now sees people improve significantly when they match up their nutrition with what their bodies need.
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Dumont said he’s worked with patients who “feel like they’ve failed at everything they’ve tried to improve their health, and then all of a sudden feel empowered to say, ‘I’m listening to my body. I’ve learned from my body, I know what works for my body — and look at what I’ve accomplished.'”
“It’s a night and day difference,” he said. “And I am very optimistic about that now.”
Conservative group catches student tearing down flyers on private campus
A video captured by a member of a conservative campus group at a private Pennsylvania college shows a student tearing down its promotional flyers, according to the group.
The Young America’s Foundation (YAF) chapter at Gettysburg College hosted conservative author and speaker Vince Ellison on Nov. 20. Days before the event, the group posted advertisements for the event around campus.
But according to Gettysburg College YAF Chairman Tyler Seeman, students who oppose right-leaning ideals tore down the chapter’s flyers — something Seeman says happens every semester when the campus group hosts an event — and one of them was caught on camera.
“Every semester, Gettysburg YAF has a campus lecture. So, we invite one of the speakers from YAF’s speaker list to come to campus and discuss whatever their specialty is,” Seeman told Fox News Digital.
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In the video, a YAF member climbs a flight of stairs after seeing a student pulling the group’s flyers off the wall, and races to confront the alleged perpetrator.
“You having fun?” the YAF member asks.
“Yeah,” the student quickly replies.
“You know that’s against college policy, right?” the YAF member asks.
“OK,” the student says, before falling silent.
The YAF member then chastised the student for not making it out of the building before being caught red-handed.
“We’ve got more of those [flyers] in the stairwell, you wanna go get those too?” the YAF member asks.
“I don’t know,” the student replies.
The YAF member then escorts the alleged perpetrator out of the building.
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He said that every semester, the group posts flyers to advertise its event, like all campus groups do.
“Every semester, students on campus tear our flyers down because we’re the only conservative 501(c)(3) on campus that actually hosts campus lectures,” Seeman said. “So, some students feel, I would presume, that our views and our speakers’ statements are contrary or dangerous to their own perspectives and their own worldview
Seeman characterized the school as “apathetic” toward the chapter’s plight. He said that on one occasion, the school sent out an email to some students condemning the behavior of YAF’s opponents, but on another occasion, school administrators declined a request to admonish bad actors.
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“Removing flyers posted in accordance with our posting policy is a violation of our community standards,” Gettysburg College spokesperson Jamie White told Fox News Digital. “Students in violation of this policy are subject to sanctions by the College.”
“While federal law prohibits us from answering questions about specific student cases, I can say it would be highly unusual for such behavior not to be sanctioned,” White said.
Seeman shared a message to those on campus who oppose YAF’s views.
“Instead of tearing down flyers, show up to our events and ask questions, because we want to have that dialogue,” he said.
“At the end of the day, that’s just going to get everyone in the room thinking about these issues, and we’d rather have as many people thinking about these issues and talking about these issues as possible, rather than just tearing down flyers and trying to silence other people’s speech, because that’s not constructive.”
YAF is no stranger to left-wing targeting on campus.
Their chapter at the University of Iowa was subject to a table-flipping incident last month.
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A criminal complaint against a student named Justin Calhoon says he flipped a YAF table on campus on Oct. 27. He was arrested on Oct. 31 and charged with disorderly conduct, fifth-degree criminal mischief and third-degree harassment, according to arrest records.
Calhoon was later accused of flipping a Turning Point USA table on campus, and was arrested again.
Steve McBee Sr. prepares for prison after pleading guilty to crop insurance fraud
Steve McBee Sr. is preparing to begin his two-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme involving crop insurance.
In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the 52-year-old reality star shared how he reacted to learning he would be going to prison, saying, “It was a sobering moment.”
He explained that when he first heard about the investigation, he “really wasn’t overly concerned,” because, as a business owner for more than 33 years, he had “gone through every audit under the sun.” He thought it was just like any other audit, and after they got the necessary information, “it’ll go away like the rest of them.”
However, after a meeting with his lawyer, he came to understand that this time was different.
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“I went down there and the government basically just gave us kind of a BAFO – best and final offer,” he said. “We have 48 hours. He said this is their bullying technique, kind of the poker game here. And then, basically what they said was, OK, you as an individual can plead guilty and, just for clarification, you can plead to one count of giving a fraudulent statement to crop insurance. If you don’t do that as an individual, Steve A. McBee, in turn, we’re going to charge one of my teammates, one of my co-workers, with 27 federal indictments in 48 hours.”
He called what they did a “bullying technique,” saying both he and his teammates “had nothing to do with it.” He said, “When I looked at them charging some of my fellow co-workers,” he couldn’t let them take the blame, adding that as the owner of the company, “I made the decision the buck stops with me,” so he took the responsibility.
WATCH: STEVE MCBEE SR. THOUGHT THE INVESTIGATION WAS JUST ANOTHER AUDIT BEFORE GETTING SENTENCED TO PRISON TIME FOR CROP INSURANCE FRAUD
McBee was sentenced to two years at the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, South Dakota, and during a sentencing hearing on Oct. 16, was also ordered to an additional two years of supervised release once he completes his prison sentence. He will also have to pay $4,022,124 in restitution to the USDA Risk Management Agency.
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Prior to his sentencing, he faced up to 30 years in federal prison.
“I wanna make absolute, with absolute clarity, that people understand, there’s no money missing,” he said. “When you farm like over 10,000 acres, which we farmed 44,000 acres, three states, in 2020, 923 different fields, they do a post-planting audit, a pre-harvest, and a post-harvest audit. They know what grain we have. They’ve been all over every field.”
“They found a plant date that was half wrong. We were there on May 20. We planted half the field. We didn’t go back till like June 19,” he added. “And they basically said, your entire crop insurance is null and void because of a half wrong plant date. I mean, I’m like, this can’t be real. That’s day-to-day common business.”
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McBee went on to call the case against him a “trophy prosecution,” adding that the business has been greatly impacted by the two-year prison sentence, explaining he’s lost over $20 million in loans. “I had to pay all them off, had to sell a bunch of land. I mean it goes on and on,” he said.
WATCH: STEVE MCBEE SR. SAYS HE ‘LOST $20 MILLION IN LOANS’ SINCE HIS SENTENCING’
In addition to the monetary loss, McBee said his reputation has also been “destroyed,” with people now thinking he earned all his money by defrauding the government, and not through “33 years of working seven days a week.”
“We didn’t make money farming. We broke even some years, and farming is very difficult to make money and, I like challenges and I love farming. It’s, I think it’s in my DNA,” he said. “Literally 75 people lost their job. We downsized drastically, and I still have 300 employees at my other businesses. It caused problems at my other businesses, well, everywhere. Everywhere you bank with, because when they charge you with a felony, I mean, then the banks get involved, as you would know from personal guarantees.”
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When it comes to his family, however, the reality star said they “have never been closer.” He said he knows he “raised four lions, not four sheep,” and isn’t worried about his sons, adding they have a strong work ethic.
Despite everything he is going through, McBee maintains he will “never let somebody make me a victim” and once his sentence is over, he “will come out stronger and more ready to go than ever.”
WATCH: STEVE MCBEE SR. SHARES HOW HE IS PREPARING FOR PRISON
“Steve McBee holds the door open for every young and old person. My kids are always like, ‘Dad, don’t pick up hitchhikers.’ I stop and change tires on the side of the highway. That’s who Steve McBee is. I know who I am,” he said. “I’m not stabbing somebody at a gas pump after I’ve been arrested 100 times and let back out on the streets. But I’m the one going to prison. Life ain’t fair sometimes, for no reason at all. I told the boys that, and I’m going to buck up, but I want my story heard because other farmers need to know they can get you any time they want.”
In terms of preparing for prison, McBee said he has “tried to get everything in line with the businesses” for his sons and the managers.
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He tries to look on the bright side of the situation, saying this is an opportunity for his managers “to step up, prove that they can do this.”
WATCH: STEVE MCBEE SR.’S JOURNEY TO PRISON WILL BE FEATURED ON “MCBEE DYNASTY: REAL AMERICAN COWBOYS”
“People don’t call me and say, ‘Hey, Steve just wanted to let you know everything’s great today,’ they call me with the crisis,” he said. “‘Hey, this and this happened, how do you want to handle it?’ Well, now they’ll get the opportunity to make those decisions, so I think they’re they’re nervous, but they’ll be fine so I’ve tried to prepare everything.”
Prior to going to prison, he will also take time to celebrate all the holidays and birthdays he will miss while away.
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The whole process will be shown on the next season of “McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys,” with McBee saying his family always wants to be “transparent” with their viewers.
“One thing that we said when we were making the show with Bravo and NBC Universal was that we want to keep it real,” he said. “We feel like too many of the shows, the drama they kind of tried to create it and whatever, so we want to be very transparent and open with our lives if we think that people can read through the BS, and they know what’s real and what’s not. And so yeah, we’re gonna allow them.”
“That was a family decision,” he added. “They asked, and they were very respectful if they could film that. And we kind of all talked about it collectively, as a group, and decided that it’s happening regardless. It’s part of our lives.”
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Beat the 3am doom loop: The wildflower secret your mind doesn’t want you to know
Whether it’s current national or international events, job-related stress, worries about our families, chronic health issues, personal relationships or a financial crisis, we don’t have to look far to find the source of anxious, spinning thoughts.
Can I survive this season? What if… ? Who can I really count on?
My own version typically involves a 3 a.m. wake-up call accompanied by a flurry of mental gymnastics as I think about every single task that needs to be done, rehearse conversations from the last few days, and try to work out the right answer to a myriad of challenges my family, career or business is facing.
Tell me I’m not the only one fighting for rest and peace.
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To some extent, the battle against anxious thoughts is one we’ll always wrestle with. But as someone who follows Jesus, I believe there is a way of living that helps us release the burden of anxiety.
In Luke 12:25-27, Jesus says:
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wildflowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.”
The invitation to “consider the wildflowers” stops me in my tracks. Maybe it’s because where I live — southwestern Colorado — puts on a pretty spectacular display of wildflowers every summer.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time walking through fields of flowers, talking to the Lord and sitting with this invitation. I was inspired to write my new devotional, “The Way of the Wildflower,” while being in God’s creation and realizing that if God takes care of the wildflowers, how much more will he take care of me?
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Here are five specific “ways of the wildflower” that I believe, if embraced, will help us live unburdened, even in the midst of circumstances that tempt us to toil and spin.
1. Wildflowers are dependent. They depend on God’s timing, the rainfall He allows, the seasons He has ordained and the ecosystem he has placed them in. They don’t have landscapers, fertilizers or a daily watering schedule, and yet they thrive. When we embrace this way of the wildflower — not demanding a specific storyline, season or more ideal circumstance — we let go of hustle and depend entirely on the God who created us.
2. Wildflowers are free. Free from worry, fear, fretting and caring for themselves. They’re not worried about storms on the horizon, dragging baggage from yesterday or anxiously laboring their days away. They exist in the place God put them, crowned with the glory he gave them. When we embrace this way of the wildflower, we can know what it means to be unburdened by what isn’t ours to fret about or carry.
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3. Wildflowers are resilient. They’re found in all kinds of unlikely places, from arid fields to dusty highways and rocky outcroppings on mountain peaks where there’s not even any soil to speak of. In fact, they seem to have a knack for springing up in conditions we’d deem unfavorable for growth.
When we who are in Christ embrace this way of the wildflower, we’re not dependent on our own strength or tenacity. Our resilience is a gift of the God who sustains us, enabling and supplying us with what we need to persevere.
4. Wildflowers are unhurried. When wildflowers aren’t actively growing, they’re dormant, which means there may not be any visible growth — but dormancy isn’t death; it’s rest. And it reminds us that wildflowers are never in a hurry to get to the next season or skip ahead to their blooming best.
When we embrace this way of the wildflower, we slow down, refusing to rush the process or resent the slow, quiet or seemingly unproductive seasons of our lives, and instead rest in God’s perfect timing.
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5. Wildflowers are beloved. I can’t help but marvel that God creates, designs and assigns extraordinary detail and beauty to individual wildflowers for his good pleasure, whether or not they’ve been discovered, identified or named.
No two wildflowers are alike — each comes with its own intricacies, details and specific traits. When we see the care with which God created wildflowers, we can’t help but consider how beloved they truly are.
When we embrace this way of the wildflower, we remember that we are uniquely known and cared for by God — precious and valued, even when we feel small or hidden.
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In a world that encourages us to be independent, live within “acceptable” parameters, move on to the next thing when we meet resistance, skip to the good part and question our worth, living the way of the wildflower is certainly countercultural — but not impossible.
The next time you wake up at 3 a.m., try considering the wildflowers and release your anxiety to the God who created you and promises to take care of you.
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Trump’s granddaughter reveals how she handles haters while pursuing pro golf dreams
For an 18-year-old in the national spotlight, Kai Trump, the eldest grandchild of President Donald Trump, has had to deal with a fair share of critics and naysayers as she pursues a professional career in golf.
During a candid conversation with her aunt, Lara Trump, the future University of Miami golfer explained how she deals with those negative comments as she stays focused on her goals.
“I just stay away from it,” she responded during an interview with her aunt on “My View with Lara Trump.” “It doesn’t really affect me because, I don’t know, I know who I am. It doesn’t really matter, to be honest. People say whatever they want to say at the end of the day. I know what’s true and I know the type of person I am. It doesn’t really matter.”
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Kai had her LPGA Tour debut at The Annika at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida, earlier this month, and though it didn’t go exactly how she planned, she still came away happy with the results in her first ever professional event.
“The first day, I’ve never been more nervous in my entire life. That was like the [Republican National Convention] times 30,” Kai told her aunt as they drove in a golf cart. “It was very nerve-racking. For the nerves, I played well the first day. Then, the second day, I kinda went out there and was like, ‘OK, no more nerves.’ The nerves weren’t as bad and I did really well. So, I mean, it was a great experience. Thankful for the opportunity.”
The high school senior shot a first-round 83, which put her in last place out of 108 players. But she bounced back on the second day with a five-over 75. Unfortunately for Kai, it wasn’t enough to make the cut into the weekend.
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However, the experience was invaluable for Kai, who will be joining the Miami Hurricanes golf team next year. She spoke about why she chose Miami during the interview.
“Really just came down to the coaches. I love the program, and I also didn’t want to be so far away from home because I love coming back home,” she said. “I love Florida. So, it really just came down to the coaches. The school is great for academics and the team is awesome,” she said.
Kai’s performance on the LPGA Tour may not have been what she wanted, but LIV Golf star Bryson DeChambeau recently told Fox News Digital that he sees things differently.
“She shot five-over the second round, which is really, it’s actually really impressive,” he explained. “We didn’t know how she was going to do, she handled herself very well, and what a great opportunity.
“I was talking to [tournament host] Annika [Sorenstam]. She’s a part of the council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, and we were just talking about how, you know, ‘What do you think about it?’ We were both talking, and this is a great opportunity. She’s like, ‘There’s plenty of others that have gotten invites that didn’t do well, but it was a great experience for them. And I think it’s going to be a great experience for her.’ It was awesome to see her go out there and compete doing what she loves doing, and she’s getting better.”
Of course, Kai loves the moments when she gets to spend time on the course with her grandfather, too. She called every one of those rounds “very special” and looks forward to them whenever they can hit the links with their busy schedules.
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But Kai remains determined and focused on getting better each day to check her goals off one by one, starting with her next four years as a Hurricanes golfer.
“I’m going to go to college for four years at the University of Miami, play golf for them there. Then, if I get anymore sponsor invites, I’ll go play an LPGA Tour event here and there if I can those invites. Then, after college, go pro — that’s the plan. Obviously, it’s a lot easier said than done,” she said.