NEW YORK — The family of former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner filed a wrongful death lawsuit Friday against the owners and operators of the Costa Rican resort where their 14-year-old son Miller was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in March 2025.
Six months after authorities raided Arenas Del Mar Beachfront & Rainforest Resort, the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit that the defendants

Israel Adesanya has claimed that his year-long absence from fighting led to the sport becoming stale.
The legendary former middleweight champion was unbeatable for years as he rose through the ranks, and helped to bring fans back to arenas after the coronavirus pandemic. However, he has hit a rough patch of recent form with three stoppage defeats in a 1-4 run since 2022.
He returns to action on Saturday night in the main event of UFC Seattle. His opponent is the divisive contender Joe Pyfer, who is known as one of the hardest hitters in the division and could be the final test of Adesanya’s career if things continue to go wrong for the former champion.
Israel Adesanya dismays over disappointing UFC during his absence
For years, Israel Adesanya was not just a dominant champion at 185lb, but an incredibly active one. Between winning the interim title in April of 2019 and finally losing the undisputed to Sean Strickland after two reigns in September of 2023, he fought 11 times – even with the onset of a pandemic in 2020.
Now, it’s borderline unheard of for a world champion in the UFC to fight any more than twice a year, with many only getting out once. Most notably in his own division, Adesanya has watched as Khamzat Chimaev has become a once-yearly fighter after racing into activity in his early run.
“Look at the middleweight division now,” he told ESPN MMA’s Brett Okamoto ahead of his first fight in over a year. “Khamzat was a very active guy coming up, smoking everybody, fighting multiple times – even twice in a month at one point.
“Now that he’s champion I’m not sure what the deal is. Is it visa issues or is it injuries? I’m not sure because now he’s got a fight coming up. But the last active champion was me, the last guy who put it on the line every time and called out the best was me.
“So that’s one thing I can say that people didn’t appreciate until now that I’m watching it. I’m like ‘damn, this game is slow, stuck without me’.
“That, and I’m sure there’s other things as well that people didn’t appreciate. No one appreciated how active I was and what I gave to the game while I was holding the belt.”

A recent Anchorage municipal audit turned up major financial problems in the private management of the George M. Sullivan Arena and two other publicly owned sports facilities. Since then, the situation appears to be worse than was initially understood.
“Suffice to say, we are still very much in the middle of all this‚

Before 2024, Jay-Z had weathered sold-out arenas, his “Ether” battle with Nas in 2001, and the hard lessons of growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant and building an empire with his Roc Nation label and conglomerate.
Now, for the first time, the Grammy winner is opening up about how his eldest daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, stood firmly in what he calls his “darkest moment.”
At 14 years old, Blue Ivy showed the world exactly what that kind of loyalty looks like during one of the most difficult stretches of her dad’s life and what should have been her big debut.
‘You Need to be Disbarred’: Fans Call for ‘Scum’ Lawyer’s Head After Jay-Z Rape Accuser Found to Be Autistic Woman with Several ‘Mistakes’ In Her Story
In a rare and deeply personal GQ interview, the Brooklyn mogul opened up about the last two years after being rattled by an assault scandal that made headlines around the world and Blue’s first major film role, which was overshadowed by the loud conversation about her father.
Days after his 55th birthday, Jay-Z publicly denied the claims in a civil lawsuit alleging a sexual assault by a woman while in the company of Sean “Diddy” Combs and an unnamed woman at a party after the 2000 Video Music Awards.
The Brooklyn native then showed up the next day beside his eldest daughter, his wife Beyoncé, and their family on the red carpet for Blue’s debut in the “Mufasa: The Lion King” premiere. Fans watched closely, reading body language and analyzing every move. Yet the family walked the carpet together, signaling unity and confidence during a moment filled with scrutiny.
As an act of solidarity, Blue wore a jersey in support of her father — a quiet but unmistakable display that carried weight far beyond fashion and a decision that needed no explanation.
“I almost cried,” Jay-Z admitted in a video interview, reflecting on the moment. “Seeing her wear that jersey and show that kind of love — that meant everything to me. As a father, you try to be strong all the time, but when your child shows up for you like that, it hits you in a different place. That was one of those moments I’ll never forget.”
The “Reasonable Doubt” rapper said it was “really hard” to contain his “anger” around the moment that helped him discover how those around him truly feel.
When asked about Blue’s big night and why he didn’t stay home, he said he considered it but wanted to support her big moment like she supported him wearing a jersey with her father’s rap name on the back.
“I was just in the corner, like tears coming down. Seriously,” said the proud dad of three. “To have that, it’s priceless. People can say that [they’ll always be there for you], but it’s very rare that you’re going to have to exercise it. And in the darkest moment for me, I got to see those sorts of things.”
Online, the reaction was swift, emotional, and in many cases deeply personal, with fans recognizing the power of a daughter showing up for her father when the spotlight felt unforgiving. Some saw the gesture as a reminder that family loyalty still matters, even in the glare of celebrity scrutiny.
One commenter wrote, “The way I got teary reading this.” Another added that the moment felt bigger than celebrity drama, posting, “Hearing this is powerful. In the middle of chaos and false accusations, seeing his daughter stand by him like that proves the strength of their bond. Truly touching.”
Giving praise directly to her, one person shared, “Blue Ivy got more emotional intelligence than the average online hater,” while another person predicted, “She’s going to be one amazing woman.”
Another commenter summed up the sentiment: “Her father’s princess right there.”
Behind the scenes, her mother, Beyoncé, took a noticeably protective approach at the time. Rather than flooding social media with pictures from the night, she focused her posts squarely on her daughter’s accomplishment and carefully avoided images that might shift attention away from the young star.
In the end, both Carter and Combs rejected the allegations, and the case came to an end in February 2025 when the plaintiff, through her attorney, Tony Buzbee, moved to dismiss it with prejudice.

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The North American leg of Lily Allen‘s West End Girl tour kicks off next month with a run of shows at intimate concert halls, but she’s expanding the tour for the acclaimed album to arenas, including New York’s Madison Square Garden, the United Center in Chicago, and Chase Center in San Francisco.
The original North American dates, announced in December, kick off in April and run through the end of the month. At those shows, she’ll perform her latest album in its entirety. She’ll then head to the U.K. and Europe through the summer, including two dates at the O2 Arena in London plus a festival appearance at Bern, Switzerland’s Gurtenfestival.
Allen will return to North America in September for the arena shows, starting in New York and wrapping up in Los Angeles at the end of the month.
Last week, Allen also paid a visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London, where the West End Girl album art was unveiled as part of the museum’s collection through the next year. The painting by Nieves González is owned by Allen herself, who loaned the painting to the gallery. The portrait isn’t the only one of Allen’s high-art ambitions — she also revealed last year that she wants to turn West End Girl into a play (on London’s West End, naturally).
How to Get Lily Allen Tickets
Presale for the arena dates starts on April 1 at 10:00 a.m. local time, which you can sign up for on Ticketmaster. If you’d prefer to catch the dates at the more intimate venues, most of those have sold out on the primary marketplace Ticketmaster, but you can still find resale options on sites like StubHub and VividSeats. Here’s what you need to know.
You can see the North American dates for Lily Allen’s 2026 North American shows below.

For USC Trojans guard Alijah Arenas, his freshman season was nothing short of unorthodox. Despite a late-season collegiate debut and a limited sample of games played, Arenas’ upside still has him firmly in the conversation as a prospect in the upcoming 2026 NBA Draft. He may not have the same lottery buzz that he had before the season, but he has quietly become a potential second round steal for a team looking for a scorer with high upside.
In Bleacher Report’s latest two-round 2026 NBA Mock Draft, Arenas is projected to stay home in California, landing with the Los Angeles Clippers at No. 37 overall. The projection is banking more on potential over proven production, but it also raises the question of whether the former 13th ranked high school player in the country could return to USC to re-establish his draft momentum and vault himself back into the lottery pick conversation with a strong sophomore campaign.
Rough Season With Flashes of Stardom
Unlike most highly-touted freshman, Arenas did not hit the ground running. His debut was delayed after a serious offseason car accident and a torn meniscus forced him to miss the first 18 games of the season.
After missing over half the year, Arenas eventually made his collegiate debut on Jan. 21 against the Northwestern Wildcats. He had a solid outing with eight points, two assists and two steals but it was obvious that it would take time to shake the rust off. Over his first four games, Arenas averaged just 7.5 points in 23.3 minutes while struggling with efficiency while trying to find his rhythm.
Over his next stretch of games, Arenas looked like the five-star prospect who once carried top-10 expectations in his class. He exploded for a career-high 29 points against the Indiana Hoosiers, followed it with 24 points at Penn State Nittany Lions, and earned Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors. In that span, his scoring jumped to 21.5 points per game in over 30 minutes.
That stretch is what scouts are holding onto. The combination of shot creation, confidence off the dribble, and a 6-foot-6 frame with a near 7-foot wingspan still projects cleanly to the next level. The inconsistency is real, but so is the upside.
Why the Clippers Could Be a Developmental Fit
On the surface, Arenas doesn’t solve an immediate need for the Clippers. But this version of the Clippers isn’t operating like a traditional contender anymore. After moving on from star guard James Harden and veteran center Ivica Zubac, Los Angeles reshaped its core around younger pieces like Darius Garland, Bennedict Mathurin, and Isaiah Jackson. That signals a clear pivot toward flexibility and long-term development. Arenas fits that timeline.
He wouldn’t be asked to run the offense with Garland in place. He wouldn’t be forced into high-pressure scoring with Mathurin already established. Instead, he’d slot into a more controlled role as a secondary shot creator, likely leading or contributing heavily to second-unit scoring. That’s where his game translates best early.
If Kawhi Leonard remains on the team beyond this offseason, Arenas benefits from a low-pressure environment with veteran structure. If Leonard is gone, the runway only expands. Either way, the Clippers would be betting on growth, not immediate production. And for a player that is still pretty unrefined, it would be a strong environment where he would be given the time to simply focus on polishing his game.
Could Arenas Return to USC?
Being projected in the early second round creates an interesting decision point for Arenas. Entering the year, he carried lottery-level expectations. Now, the evaluation is more complicated. That’s where the possibility of a return to USC becomes real. On an episode of the Hoopin’ n Hollerin’ podcast, his father, former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, revealed that Alijah returning for his sophomore season isn’t completely out of the question.
“I said, ‘If you want to come back again, why would you?’ He said, ‘I want to lead college in scoring. I don’t think these people know what I could do.’ I said, ‘Fair, fair.’”
“I said, ‘If you’re top five in either one, which one would you rather do? He was like, ‘I would rather come back again and be number five so I can lead the league in scoring.’ He puts too much into his craft that he doesn’t think he got evaluated correctly.”
With Chad Baker-Mazara and multiple seniors departing, the Trojans are heading toward a younger core. Arenas would likely step into a featured role alongside five-star forward Christian Collins and the Ratliff twins, Adonis and Darius. A full offseason of development could position him as the clear No. 1 option.
That’s the real decision: bet on upside now, or maximize it with a full season as the guy.

FORT WORTH, Texas — UConn coach Geno Auriemma is ripping the double-regional format being used in the women’s NCAA Tournament, saying it doesn’t make sense for the teams still playing or for efforts to grow the game.
Auriemma brought up attendance, bad shooting percentages and teams having to come to the arena early and late on the same day when taking aim at the format that’s in place for the fourth year, and set to continue for at least five more.
“Well, I think the first question you’d have to ask is why did they go from four (sites) to two. What was the rationale?” the 12-time national champion coach said Saturday. “If they can explain it legitimately and then prove that it works, then great. So what was the reason?”
NCAA officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The defending national champion Huskies (37-0), the overall No. 1 seed, play Notre Dame (25-10) in the Fort Worth Regional 1 final Sunday.
The Huskies held their required media availability Saturday morning, after the Fighting Irish had already completed their session and before two Sweet 16 games in the Fort Worth Regional 3 were played at Dickies Arena. UConn and Notre Dame both had scheduled practice times there later in the evening.
“So we had to get our kids up, come over here. You already knew who we were playing last night, but we can’t get on the court, and neither can the other teams,” Auriemma said. “Does anybody who makes these decisions ever ask the coaches and the players, hey, does this work?”
AP All-America teammates Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong agreed with their coach’s strong sentiment.
“It’s not ideal. Like the schedule waking up early to do media and then can’t come back to this arena until later, just little things like that. But everyone’s trying to figure that out right now. Every team is going through that,” Fudd said. “There’s no excuse in that. So we’ll figure it out. We’re making it work, but it definitely isn’t the most ideal setup.”
Auriemma, the winningest men’s or women’s NCAA basketball coach with 1,287 victories, didn’t wait for a question from reporters to share his thoughts on the format, opening his session by listing the following numbers: 4 for 20, 4 for 22, 1 for 17, 5 for 17, 4 for 16, 7 for 26.
“That’s the 3-point shooting yesterday across the country. How many arenas are we going to sell out with that (expletive)?” he said. “Now, maybe it was just a bad day shooting by everybody. These are all teams that average probably 30 (percent), over 30, for the season. Know what time our shootaround was yesterday? Six in the morning, 6:20, I think, for half an hour.”
He also mentioned the total combined attendance (18,821 announced) at the two venues Friday, in Fort Worth and Sacramento, California.
Auriemma said there is a lack of input from coaches, and that nothing changes even when the NCAA sends representatives to schools every year after the tournament.
“Hopefully I’m speaking for the other coaches. Some coaches might think I’m full of it. And this is not about UConn. I hope everybody understands that,” he said. ”This is not about us, because you know, we’ve managed to go to the Final Four and win national championships no matter where they’re played, when they’re played, what time they’re played, whatever.
“I think there is a level of frustration right now among the coaches that’s higher than any time I’ve ever seen it.”
For the second day in a row, Auriemma mentioned new rims and new basketballs being used during NCAA Tournament games, and the impact those have on shooting.
“It’s hard to make shots in the postseason. They just break out these new baskets, new rims, and then it gets in the kids’ heads,” Auriemma said Friday after UConn’s 63-42 win over North Carolina, in which the teams were a combined 8 of 42 on 3-pointers.
The coach on Saturday again brought up “new basketballs right out of the box” and the rims.
“Got people dribbling the ball off their feet. You got people missing layups all over the place. You bounce the ball, and it goes up to the ceiling. There’s just no concept of how basketball is played,” he said. “Not that I have any of the answers. Believe me, I just have questions.”

Just two weeks after Benson Boone wrapped up his American Heart Tour, the singer has cooked up his Wanted Man Tour, hitting arenas nationwide this summer.
Boone announced the trek Sunday with a video detailing how he’d bake a cake and how “the whole internet” considers him “The One-Hit Wonder”:
The tour, which promises “backflips and magic,” kicks off July 7 in Pittsburgh and touches all corners of the continental U.S., concluding September 3 in Casper, Wyoming. Along the way, Boone has scheduled two nights at both Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena.
Check out Boone’s tour page for full ticket information. Supporting acts for the Wanted Man Tour have not yet been revealed.
Boone finished his 50-show American Heart Tour on March 15 in Birmingham, England. The trek was in support of his 2025 LP American Heart, while the Wanted Man tour takes its name from a track off that album.
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In 2013, a scientist at Abbott Laboratories saw study results with potentially big implications for the company’s profits and the lives of some of the world’s most fragile people: preterm infants.
The upshot, she wrote in an email: Babies fed rival Mead Johnson Nutrition’s acidified liquid human milk fortifier — a nutritional supplement used in neonatal intensive care units — developed certain complications at higher rates than those given an Abbott fortifier, a researcher at the University of Nebraska had found.
At least one of those complications can be deadly.
The Abbott scientist, Bridget Barrett-Reis, described the results in the email to colleagues, using two exclamation points. Then she proposed that Abbott test the Mead Johnson fortifier, acidified for sterilization, against another Abbott product.
The clinical trial among preterm infants that Abbott subsequently sponsored, known as AL16, is a case study of corporate warfare in the high-stakes business of infant nutrition, wherein preemies have been coveted like commodities; their anxious, vulnerable parents have been — whether they know it or not — targets of calculated commercial pursuit; and scientific research has been used as a marketing tool.
In hospitals around the country, dozens of babies born an average of 11 weeks early were fed Mead Johnson’s fortifier. Dozens of others were fed an Abbott fortifier that wasn’t acidified.
The clinical trial became a boon for Abbott, which publicized the results to wrest market share from Mead Johnson. But for some of the babies enrolled, it didn’t turn out so well, a KFF Health News investigation found.
Far more infants given Mead Johnson’s product developed a buildup of acid in the blood called metabolic acidosis than those fed Abbott’s product — 19 versus four, according to results published in the journal PharmacoEconomics.
Two outside doctors monitoring infants in the study became so alarmed that they refused to enroll any more babies, according to an April 2016 email one of them sent to Abbott.
In a related email to Abbott, neonatologist Robert White of Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana, and Pediatrix Medical Group — an investigator in the study — explained his concerns.
“We had another SAE” — serious adverse event — “today in which a child developed profound metabolic acidosis while on the study fortifier,” White wrote. The severity was “unlike what we would see in most children with these issues.”
A manager at Abbott replied that the company was “taking your concerns very seriously.”
The study continued for almost a year.
At least some of the consent forms used to inform parents about risks did not mention metabolic acidosis or the often-fatal necrotizing enterocolitis, another condition identified in the 2013 email that led to the study.
In a November response to questions for this article, Abbott spokesperson Scott Stoffel said the clinical trial “was safe and ethical” and that the fortifiers it compared were “on the market and widely used.”
The study was “led by 20 non-Abbott investigators,” Stoffel said.
According to a federal website, Abbott’s Barrett-Reis chaired the study.
Stoffel added that the study was approved “by 14 independent safety review boards at hospitals” and “published in a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal.”
“It is reckless and not credible to suggest that these doctors and institutions conducted and then published the results of an unsafe or unethical study,” Stoffel said.
A spokesperson for Mead Johnson, Jennifer O’Neill, did not comment on Abbott’s clinical trial but said in a November statement to KFF Health News that existing studies “cannot responsibly support” any connection between the acidified fortifier and conditions such as necrotizing enterocolitis or metabolic acidosis.
Mead Johnson executive Cindy Hasseberg argued in a deposition that Abbott waged a “smear campaign” against the acidified fortifier that was “very hard to come back from.”
In 2024, Mead Johnson discontinued the product.
Winning the ‘Hospital War’
Behind their warm-and-fuzzy marketing, industry giants Abbott, maker of Similac products, and Mead Johnson, maker of the Enfamil line, have turned neonatal intensive care units into arenas of brutal competition.
This article quotes from and is based largely on records from three lawsuits against formula manufacturers that went to trial in 2024 and are now on appeal. The cases are Watson v. Mead Johnson, Gill v. Abbott Laboratories, and Whitfield v. St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The records include emails, internal presentations, and other company documents used as exhibits in litigation, as well as court transcripts and witness testimony from depositions.
The records provide an inside view of the business of infant formula and fortifier, a nutritional supplement added to a mother’s milk. For example, a Mead Johnson slide deck for a 2020 national sales meeting — later used in the Whitfield trial — outlined a plan for “Branding NICU Babies.”
Urging employees to win more sales from neonatal intensive care units, the document said: “It is time to open up a can of ‘Whoop Ass.’”
In internal documents and other material from litigation reviewed by KFF Health News, formula makers described hospitals as gateways to the much larger retail market because parents are likely to stick with the brand their babies started on. Products used in the NICU help win hospital contracts, and hospital contracts help establish brand loyalty, according to court records.
Manufacturers vie for contracts that can be “exclusive” or nearly so, according to records from the litigation, including company documents and testimony by people who have worked in management for the companies.
An undated Abbott presentation used in the Gill case, apparently referring to inroads with hospitals in its rivalry with Mead Johnson, boasted of “MJ Strongholds Broken!”
It saluted two employees who “Own 27K Babies Exclusively,” and said another “Stole 600 formula feeders from MJ.”
Still others were praised for “Playing in Mom’s mailbox” or “kicking … and ‘taking names.’”
In July 2024, Abbott CEO Robert Ford said in a conference call for investors that formula and fortifier for preterm infants generated total annual revenue of about $9 million — a small portion of Abbott’s total sales of $42 billion in 2024 and its $2.2 billion of sales in the United States from pediatric nutritional products.
Industry documents cited in litigation provide a different perspective.
“‘First Bottle Fed’ drives our business,” stated an Abbott training presentation from about a decade ago used in the Gill and Whitfield trials.
That described a baby’s first formula feeding in the hospital, the document said. Over 74% of the time, an infant fed formula in the hospital stays on that brand at home, the document said.
Abbott’s goal was that the first-bottle-fed strategy would help generate more than $1.5 billion in sales, the document showed. A staff training slide displayed during the Whitfield trial showed how that momentum could pay off in bonuses for Abbott sales representatives, leading to a “Happy Rep.”
Mead Johnson has espoused a similar strategy.
The company rolled out a “Flip & Win” incentive plan with cash rewards for flipping hospitals from Abbott, according to a 2019 document marked for internal use by Mead Johnson and its parent company, England-based Reckitt Benckiser Group, and admitted into evidence in the Watson case.
“Winning in the NICU is critical to contract gains and acquisition,” stated a company plan for 2022 that was cited in the Whitfield case.
One Abbott document shown in the Whitfield trial said more than half of first feedings happen at night, adding, “Nighttime is the right time to drive your business.”
A “Mead Johnson University” training document described a scenario in which a sales rep overhears patient information in a NICU and encouraged the rep to promote the company’s products. The document, titled “Advanced NICU Skills,” was admitted as evidence in the Watson case.
“[Y]ou are walking back into your most important NICU,” it said. “You overhear the HCP’s” — health care providers, apparently — “stating all of the notes,” it said. “There may be some information that may help you to position your products as a resource for this patient and to handle any objections that the HCP may present you with.”
To win parents’ business, companies have supplied formula to hospitals free or at a loss, court records show. That has resulted in such curiosities as a Mead Johnson “purchasing agreement” cited in the Watson case, listing the price for product after product as “no charge.”
In a 2017 strategy document prepared for Mead Johnson, a consulting firm laid out a plan “to win hospital war.”
Why focus on hospitals? “INFLECTION POINT FOR VULNERABLE MOMS,” it explained.
The document was displayed in the Whitfield case.
In the market for preterm nutrition, Abbott and Mead Johnson compete with each other, not against the use of human milk, the companies told KFF Health News.
“Thus, references in documents about wanting to ‘win’ or ‘own’ the NICU refer to out-performing Mead Johnson by offering the highest-quality products,” Abbott’s Stoffel said in February.
Asked specific questions about business strategies and internal documents, Mead Johnson’s O’Neill said the company was “concerned that you are presenting a misleading and incomplete picture.”
Mead Johnson’s products “are safe, effective, and recommended by neonatologists when clinically appropriate,” O’Neill added.
On the Defensive
In courthouses around the country, Abbott and Mead Johnson are on the defensive — and have been for years.
In hundreds of lawsuits, parents of sickened or deceased preterm infants have alleged that formula designed for preemies has caused necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a devastating condition in which immature intestinal tissue can become infected and die, spreading infection through the body.
Lawsuits also accuse the manufacturers of failing to warn parents of the risk.
One of the cases on which this article is based, Watson v. Mead Johnson, resulted in a $60 million judgment against Mead Johnson. Another, Gill v. Abbott Laboratories, et al., resulted in a $495 million judgment against Abbott. The third, Whitfield v. St. Louis Children’s Hospital, et al., resulted in a jury verdict in favor of Abbott and Mead Johnson, but the judge found errors and misconduct on the part of defense counsel, faulted his own performance, and granted the plaintiff a new trial.
The cases have involved children like Robynn Davis, who was born at 26 weeks, lost 75% to 80% of her intestine to NEC, suffered brain damage — and, at almost 3 years old, couldn’t walk, couldn’t really talk, and was eating through a tube, as Jacob Plattenberger, an attorney representing her, described in court in 2024.
An attorney for Abbott, James Hurst, said in court that Robynn suffered a catastrophic brain injury at birth, 10 days before she received any Abbott formula, and that her NEC resulted not from formula but from many health problems.
In at least three cases, a federal judge has granted summary judgment in favor of Abbott — ruling for the company before the lawsuits even reached trial.
The formula makers have repeatedly denied fault.
Addressing stock analysts in 2024, Abbott’s chief executive denounced as “without merit or scientific support” the theory that preterm infant formula or milk fortifier caused NEC.
In a joint statement issued in 2024, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health said there was “no conclusive evidence that preterm infant formula causes NEC.”
Mead Johnson’s O’Neill said the scientific consensus is that there is no established causal link between the use of specialized preterm hospital nutrition products and NEC.
Neonatologists use the products routinely, O’Neill said.
O’Neill cited a statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics saying the causes of NEC “are multifaceted and not completely understood.”
In a legal brief filed with an Illinois appeals court in the Watson case, the company said “the NEC-related risks” of a formula for preterm infants “are the subject of medical debate,” adding that trial evidence “demonstrated, at a minimum, uncertainty as to the magnitude of the risk, as well as the causal role of various feeding options in the development of NEC.”
Manufacturers say formula is needed when mother’s milk or human donor milk isn’t an option. Fortifier, a product tailored to preemies, is meant to augment mother’s milk when babies are born prematurely and a mother’s milk alone doesn’t deliver enough nutrition. The Mead Johnson fortifier used in the head-to-head clinical trial sponsored by Abbott was acidified to prevent bacterial contamination.
In March 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his department, which encompasses the FDA, was undertaking a review of infant formula, dubbed “Operation Stork Speed.” It includes reassessing nutrient requirements and increasing testing for heavy metals and other contaminants, HHS said.
However, FDA oversight of infant formula is limited. The agency doesn’t approve the products or their labeling. Whether to report adverse events — illnesses or deaths potentially related to the products — to the FDA is largely at manufacturers’ discretion.
The business of infant formula further spotlights a central contradiction in the Trump administration’s health policies. When it comes to food and medical products, the administration has criticized industry-funded research as unworthy of trust. Yet under Kennedy, it has disrupted, defunded, or sought to cut government-funded research, which could leave industry-funded research with a larger and more influential role.
It “is entirely appropriate for the Department to scrutinize research design, conflicts of interest, and funding sources, particularly when research is used to inform public policy,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said.
‘At the Table’
Company emails cited in litigation shed light on the industry’s approach to research.
In a 2015 email, when Mead Johnson was considering supplying some of its formula to a researcher for a study, a company neonatologist expressed concern that the results could be spun to make the preemie product look unsafe.
“However, we are more likely to have control over final language if we provide the small support and are ‘at the table’ with him,” Mead Johnson’s Timothy Cooper added in the email, which was cited in the Watson trial.
In 2017, Abbott exchanged a series of messages with researchers at Johns Hopkins University about a study on how the composition of infant formula might affect NEC in mice. The email thread became an exhibit in the Whitfield case.
Abbott was both funding and collaborating on the work, a later publication in a scientific journal shows.
Forwarding a draft of the resulting paper to Abbott, David Hackam, chief of pediatric surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in one of the emails, “We hope you like it.” He also requested help from Abbott in filling in information.
“The manuscript looks great!” Abbott’s Tapas Das wrote in May 2017, after a back-and-forth.
But Abbott had some changes, the email thread shows.
“We (VM & DT) made some edits in the text especially to soften a bit with the statement ‘infant formula seems responsible for developing NEC,’” Das wrote.
“Instead, we thought if we could state as ‘infant formula is linked to severity of NEC’. So we made changes throughout the text emphasizing on severity of NEC by infant formula rather than development of NEC by infant formula,” Das wrote.
Das wrote that “other factors are involved for NEC development as described in the text.”
Hackam did not respond to questions KFF Health News sent by email.
Efforts to reach Das and Cooper — including by phoning numbers and sending letters to addresses that appeared to be associated with them — were unsuccessful.
When Mead Johnson provided support to scientific researchers, the company would want to make sure they reported the results “in an honest way,” Cooper said in a deposition played in the Watson trial.
The Abbott co-authors “proposed routine edits to the article for scientific accuracy and for the consideration of the other authors, some of the most well-respected NEC researchers in the world,” Abbott’s Stoffel said.
“Abbott regularly collaborates with and publishes studies with leading NEC scientists for the benefit of both premature infants and the entire scientific community,” Stoffel said.
“The research studies Mead Johnson supports are conducted independently and appropriately, with full transparency,” said O’Neill, the Mead Johnson spokesperson.
‘In the Wrong Direction’
Transparency can be subjective.
More than a decade ago, Mead Johnson sponsored a clinical trial testing what was then a new acidified liquid fortifier against a powdered fortifier already on the market.
In the study, which enrolled 150 babies, 5% of infants fed the acidified liquid developed NEC compared with 1% of infants fed the powder, according to deposition testimony and a record of the clinical trial used in the Watson case.
That information was not included in a 2012 medical journal article that reported the study results.
The article, in the journal Pediatrics, whose authors included two Mead Johnson employees, concluded it was safe to use the new liquid fortifier instead of the powdered one. The article also said that, comparing babies fed the liquid with those fed the powder, the study observed no difference in the incidence of NEC.
The unpublished finding of 5% to 1% represented so few babies that it was not statistically significant.
Nonetheless, retired neonatologist Victor Herson, who ran a NICU in Connecticut and has studied fortifiers, said in an interview he would have wanted to see those numbers.
“The trend was in the wrong direction,” Herson said, “and would have, I think, alerted the typical neonatologist that, well, maybe not to rush in and adopt” the new fortifier.
It’s common for study publications to include tables showing complications even if they aren’t statistically significant so that readers can draw their own conclusions, Herson said.
Neonatologist Fernando Moya, a co-author of the Pediatrics article, had a different perspective.
“You may not be very familiar with medical literature but when there are no ‘statistically significant’ differences, we do not comment on whether something was increased or decreased,” Moya said by email. He referred questions to Mead Johnson.
Mead Johnson’s O’Neill gave several reasons why “the data you cite was not included in the publication.” She said the study was designed to examine infant nutrition and growth, NEC was a “secondary outcome,” the NEC numbers weren’t statistically significant, and the size of the study, “while appropriate, was not powered to draw any conclusions with respect to any potential differences in NEC.”
In a deposition used in the Watson trial, Carol Lynn Berseth — a co-author of the paper and Mead Johnson’s director of medical affairs for North America when the study was completed — testified that the article was peer-reviewed and that no reviewer asked for additional data.
“Had they asked for it, we would have shown it,” Berseth testified.
Berseth did not respond to a phone message or to an email or letter sent to addresses apparently associated with her.
‘It Should Not Be in a NICU’
The Abbott scientist who flagged research on Mead Johnson’s acidified fortifier in 2013, Bridget Barrett-Reis, was later listed as chair of AL16, the follow-up clinical trial Abbott sponsored, and as a co-author of resulting publications.
In a deposition, she was asked why she conducted the study.
“I conducted that study because I thought [the acidified fortifier] could be dangerous,” she said, “and I thought it would be a good idea to find out if it really was because nobody was doing anything about it.”
Elaborating on the thinking behind the study, she testified: “It should not be in a NICU in the United States. That product should not be anywhere for preterm infants.”
In her 2013 email recommending that Abbott conduct a study, Barrett-Reis cited findings by “an independent investigator,” Ann Anderson-Berry, that showed, compared with preterm infants fed an Abbott powder, those on Mead Johnson’s acidified liquid “had slower growth, higher incidence of metabolic acidosis and NEC!!”
Asked about the exclamation points, Barrett-Reis testified in a January 2024 deposition used in the Gill case that she wasn’t excited about the findings. “I am known to put exclamation points instead of question marks and everything anywhere, so I have no idea at the time what those meant,” she testified.
The research that caught her eye in 2013 reviewed patient records from the Nebraska Medical Center. The institution had switched to the acidified fortifier with high hopes but stopped using it after four months because it was concerned about patient outcomes, Anderson-Berry and Nebraska co-authors reported in January 2014.
In an interview, Anderson-Berry said she set out to analyze why, during those four months, babies’ growth “fell apart in our hands.”
Abbott was “very pleased” with Anderson-Berry’s findings and paid her to go around the country discussing them, she said.
Metabolic acidosis can be fatal, Anderson-Berry said. But typically it can be managed, she said, adding that she didn’t know of deaths from metabolic acidosis caused by the acidified fortifier.
Research has found that metabolic acidosis “is associated with poor developmental and neurologic outcomes in very low birth weight infants,” according to a paper Barrett-Reis co-authored. In addition, it is “a risk factor for neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis,” the paper said.
Barrett-Reis did not respond to inquiries for this article, including a message sent via LinkedIn and a letter sent to an address that appeared to be associated with her.
In court, Abbott representative Robyn Spilker testified that metabolic acidosis can be a very serious condition and that nobody should knowingly put kids at risk for getting NEC in an effort to make money.
Before infants were enrolled in the AL16 study, their parents or guardians had to sign consent forms disclosing, among other things, the risks that clinical trial subjects would face.
International ethical principles for medical research on humans, known as the Declaration of Helsinki, say each participant must be adequately informed of the “potential risks.”
Questioning Abbott’s Spilker in litigation, plaintiff’s attorney Timothy Cronin said, “Ma’am, despite the hypothesis going in, are you aware Abbott did not put metabolic acidosis on the informed consent form given to parents that signed their kids up for that study?” Spilker, who identified herself in court as a senior brand manager, said she didn’t know what was on the consent forms.
Through a request under a Kentucky open-records law, KFF Health News obtained an informed consent form for the AL16 study used at a public institution, the University of Louisville. The form mentioned risks such as diarrhea, constipation, gas, and fussiness. It did not mention metabolic acidosis or NEC.
KFF Health News also reviewed an informed consent form for the AL16 study used at Memorial Hospital of South Bend. It was largely identical to the one used in Louisville and did not mention metabolic acidosis or NEC.
Cronin, the plaintiff’s attorney, said in an interview that Abbott showed disregard for the health and safety of premature babies participating in the AL16 clinical trial.
“I think it’s unethical to do a study if you know you are subjecting participants in the study to an increased risk of a potentially deadly disease and you don’t at least tell them that,” Cronin said.
Anderson-Berry told KFF Health News that Abbott was “ethically well positioned” to conduct the AL16 clinical trial because her paper was not definitive.
Yet she said she was unwilling to enroll any of her patients in the Abbott clinical trial because she didn’t want to take the chance that they would be given the acidified liquid.
White, the neonatologist who stopped enrolling patients in the study, defended the decision to conduct it. In an interview, he said it was appropriate to conduct a large, properly controlled clinical trial to see whether concerns raised in earlier research were borne out. The two babies whose serious adverse events he reported to Abbott ended up doing fine, he said.
But White, who went on to be listed as a co-author of the study, told KFF Health News that parents should have been informed that the risks included metabolic acidosis and NEC.
“In retrospect, obviously, that is something that we, I think, should have informed parents of,” he said.
Abbott did not directly answer questions about the consent forms.
The results of AL16 were published in the Journal of Pediatrics in 2018. The conclusion: Infants fed the acidified product — in other words, the Mead Johnson fortifier — had higher rates of metabolic acidosis and poorer feeding tolerance. Plus, poorer “initial weight gain.”
The title of the article trumpeted “Improved Outcomes in Preterm Infants Fed a Nonacidified Liquid Human Milk Fortifier” — in other words, the Abbott product.
Eight of the 78 infants receiving the Mead Johnson fortifier were treated for metabolic acidosis, compared with none of the 82 receiving the Abbott product, the article said. Four infants on Mead Johnson’s product experienced serious adverse events, compared with one on the Abbott product, the article reported.
One infant receiving the Mead Johnson product died — from sepsis, the article said. One had a case of NEC, and infants on Mead Johnson’s fortifier “had significantly more vomiting,” the article said.
However, in a pair of letters to the editor published in the Journal of Pediatrics, doctors criticized the article as hyped. Writers said the article emphasized findings that were subjective and susceptible to bias.
In its business battle with Mead Johnson, Abbott deployed the study. It produced an annotated copy for its sales force, which was shown in the Whitfield trial.
Abbott’s use of AL16 as a marketing tool worked.
In 2019, when Barrett-Reis applied for a promotion at Abbott, she wrote that the results of the study had been “leveraged to secure whole hospital contracts which have increased hospital share to > 70%.”
Her letter was displayed in a deposition video filed in the Gill litigation.
Internally, Mead Johnson conceded it had been beaten in the fight over fortifiers. In the slide deck for a 2020 national sales meeting, the company said, “Abbott won the narrative.”

I believe that statesmanship is exceptional leadership characterized by vision, courage, compassion, civility and effectiveness.
Considered narrowly, statesmanship relates primarily to politics and government. However, when looked at more expansively, it is equally relevant to business, law, academia, philanthropy and religion. We need statesmanship in all aspects of American society and from the leaders and institutions who influence our lives.
We even need it in sports, which is, as we know, an important feature of American economic, social and even political life.
Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, would resist the designation of statesman. However, his impressive work to create a culture of excellence for the Warriors has had an outsize impact that far transcends basketball arenas. Kerr’s system of sustained excellence has captured the notice, admiration, and even attempts at emulation in business and politics.
Earlier this year, The Athletic, the sports unit of The New York Times, conducted a survey of the 40 most admired leaders in sports. Kerr took the top spot.
Kerr has been devoted to basketball since he was a teenager. He played at the University of Arizona and then spent 15 years in the NBA as a player. He was a member of three Bulls championship teams and two with the San Antonio Spurs. After retiring as a player, he was the general manager of the Phoenix Suns and a broadcaster for TNT, and, since 2014, he has been the head coach of the Warriors.
Under his leadership, the Warriors reached the NBA Finals six times and won four championships. His 2015-16 Warriors team won 73 games, the most in a single season in the league’s history. He has been voted as one of the 15 best coaches in NBA history. He was the head coach of the USA men’s basketball team that won the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Kerr’s nine combined championships as a player and coach are deeply impressive. So is the way in which he has won. He’s created a culture of innovation and quality that has been widely lauded. It is as common to see Kerr speak at a graduate business school or corporate conference as it is on a sports podcast.
He has said that the Warriors culture is based on four values: joy, competition, mindfulness and compassion. These values infuse the Warriors organization not only during championship years. They are also apparent during years when the team has struggled, often due to player injuries.
Kerr encourages players, coaches and others in the Warriors organization to be kind and tough-minded, compassionate and competitive, rigorous and creative, consistent and innovative. He celebrates and models collaboration, preparation and transparency and urges lifelong learning. He has invited luminaries from various professions to describe their work. Author Michael Lewis, Ambassador Michael McFaul and performer Alicia Keys are among those who have shared their insights with the Warriors.
Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival last summer, Kerr described the challenge of creating a culture of excellence and also talked about using his public platform to weigh in on matters on which he is both passionate and knowledgeable.
One is gun violence prevention. His father, Malcolm Kerr, was a respected University of California, Los Angeles professor who was assassinated in 1984 while serving as the president of the American University in Beirut. Kerr is determined to help find solutions to the epidemic of gun violence, focusing on background checks and gun safety.
“There is plenty we can do. There is so much we can do,” he said.
Kerr brushes aside questions about a future political career. “That’s not what I do. I’m a basketball coach,” he said at the Aspen event. “We can lead from our own sphere, from our own place in the world.”
However, his speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago made it clear that he understands the essence of leadership — and of statesmanship.
“I believe in a certain kind of leadership,” he told the DNC delegates gathered at the United Center. “I believe that leaders must display dignity. I believe that leaders must tell the truth. I believe that leaders must be able to laugh at themselves. I believe that leaders must care for and love the people they are leading. I believe leaders must possess knowledge and expertise, but with the full awareness that none of us has all the answers.”
Kerr ended his remarks with an uplifting message for all of us.
“Now imagine what we could do with all 330 million of us playing on the same team. Not as Democrats, not as Republicans, not as libertarians, but as Americans who know the greatness of our nation doesn’t come from any one of us, but from each of us doing our part to build a more perfect union.”
John T. Shaw is director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. Shaw’s columns, exclusive to the Tribune, appear the last Monday of each month. His most recent book is “The Education of a Statesman: How Global Leaders Can Repair a Fractured World.”

Say hello to the belles of the ball (and Cinderellas).
On Sunday, March 15, the NCAA announced the sprawling 68-team field that will compete at arenas all over the country in the 2026 Men’s Basketball Tournament, aka March Madness.
This year’s No. 1 seeds are Cameron Boozer’s Duke Blue Devils, Thomas Haugh’s Florida Gators, Jaden Bradley’s Arizona Wildcats and Yaxel Lendeborg’s Michigan Wolverines.
They’ll be joined by buzzy upstarts like Mark Mitchell’s Missouri Tigers, Pryce Sandfort’s Nebraska Cornhuskers and Peter Suder’s Miami Ohio Redhawks who are battling in the “First Four.”
As for New York, they’ll be represented by not one, not two, not three but four (!) squads in the Big Dance. They are Zuby Ejiofor’s No. 5-ranked St. John’s Red Storm as well as Cruz Davis’ No. 13 Hofstra Pride along with as No. 16 seeds Gavin Doty’s Siena Saints and Jamal Fuller’s Long Island University Sharks.
Early-round games are scheduled to go down at:
University of Dayton Arena
Dayton, OH
Moda Center
Portland, OR
Paycom Center
Oklahoma City, OK
Bon Secours Wellness Arena
Greenville, SC
KeyBank Center
Buffalo, NY
Other first and second-round contests are scheduled for Philadelphia, Tampa, St. Louis and San Diego before the games relocate for the Sweet 16.
If you’d like to root on the squad of your choosing, see future NBA stars and/or witness an earth-shattering bracket-busting upset, last-minute tickets are available for all 67 games leading up to the April 6 Championship at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium.
At the time of publication, the lowest price we could find for any pair of contests was $17 including fees on StubHub.
Multi-game session passes for the first two rounds that get you into six games over three days start at $343 including fees (that’s for Philadelphia).
Not bad considering that The Post’s Ryan Dunleavy dubbed this year’s crop as “Arguably the greatest — and deepest — freshman class in the sport’s history.”
Want to catch a game or three?
We’re here to help, hardwood fanatics.
Our team has everything you need to know and more about the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament below.
NCAA Men’s Basketball March Madness tickets 2025
A complete breakdown of all upcoming games separated by venues — including game dates, teams and ticket prices — can be found here:
University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, OH
Moda Center in Portland, OR
Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, SC
Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, OK
KeyBank Center in Buffalo, NY
Viejas Arena in San Diego, CA
Enterprise Center in St. Louis, MO
Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, FL
Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, PA
Final Four tickets 2026
The Big Dance will come to a close this year in Indianapolis.
On Saturday, April 4, the Final Four goes down at the Lucas Oil Stadium aka the home of the Indianapolis Colts.
Two days later, March Madness ’26 wraps things up with the National Championship game at the same venue on Monday, April 6.
You can find tickets for all three high-stakes games here.
Sweet 16 tickets 2026
Before the playoff picture fully sorts itself out, the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 will take place in four major cities.
To make sure you’re in the loop, here’s how to grab tickets for all sessions at each of the four venues hosting the middle of the tourney.
March Madness 2026 bracket
Want to start making predictions ASAP?
You can get to it right now with our printable bracket below.
For all things March Madness, check out The Post’s bracket coverage and top storylines.
How to watch March Madness on TV
If you’re looking to scream at the TV enjoy the games from the comfort of your own home, we’re happy to report that that should be a cinch this year.
Most games can be found on CBS, TNT, TBS or truTV; all of these channels are available with a free trial of DIRECTV’s choice plan.
As always, be sure to check your local listings ahead of time to find the game you’re looking for ahead of time.
Huge 2026 concerts
Love March Madness…and music?
If that’s the case, here are just five shows you won’t want to miss live these next few months.
• J. Cole
• A$AP Rocky
• Kid Cudi
• Don Toliver
• Earth Wind and Fire with Lionel Richie
Who else is on the road? Take a look at our list of all the biggest concert tours in 2026 to find the show for you.
Why you should trust ‘Post Wanted’ by the New York Post

Usually, there is a lot of chatter on Gil’s Arena, but this time, when Kenyon Martin spoke, everyone else was silent. Because the issue was personal, a person from his inner circle mocked his speech impediment. The 15-year NBA veteran gave a teaching moment on the Gilbert Arenas podcast and then explained on Instagram why it was important.
Martin has suffered from stuttering right from his childhood days in Dallas, when he also had to deal with bullying and avoided speaking in school. So, dealing with ‘name-calling’ was not the real issue. The main problem was that the disrespect came from someone close to him, a person who had been to his home multiple times. The person of interest here is Suge, a member of the production crew.
“It was about me addressing the situation, y’all, but it wasn’t about me,” said Martin. “It was for the other people that stutter, that’s been teased and bullied and, like I said, missed out on opportunities because of it. This was about them and letting them know you don’t have to put up with it. You don’t. It’s a special thing that we have. It’s not going anywhere.”
K-Mart also stated that he was on the board of the National Association for Stuttering, and they are constantly working to find more effective ways of therapy through speech. “But I am here for you guys. Deada–. I am here to speak up for you because I once was someone who didn’t have a speaking platform to let people know about this and to speak up for yourself. This is for you guys, man.”
On Tuesday’s Gil’s Arena, Kenyon Martin replayed the video of the staffer apparently making fun of him and his stuttering. He emphasized that speech impediment is a deeply personal issue for him. The statements and comments affected the 6’9″ forward from Michigan. He called out Suge and labeled him “disloyal.”
“This is what disloyalty and people who don’t respect you look like,” said Martin in Gil’s Arena. “People like him. Be careful who you invite into your home. Who you have around your loved ones, your friends, and family. This is what you get. People like this. That talk about something that is near and dear to my heart.”
Even during the live episode and on his Instagram, K-Mart made sure that he wanted no apology despite the staffer pleading multiple times.
Kenyon Martin did not accept the apology
When the former NBA veteran replayed the video, Suge, the person responsible for making these comments, recalled apologizing for this situation. But at the time, Martin had no context and did not expect the person close to him to say something this insensitive. In fact, K-Mart never watched the video until two weeks ago.
Someone else sent him the video, which is why Martin was done with Suge, and the last thing he wants is an apology. “I drew a line in the sand a long time ago with this. There is no apology ever as an adult that I would accept for this. I came in here one day over at Gil’s house, and you walked up to me and tried to apologize out of the blue. I blew you off because I didn’t know what you were talking about,” he added.
Since Kenyon Martin didn’t expect somebody close to him to mock him, the pain and disappointment were more. But once it was brought to his attention, the former number 1 pick decided to stand up for what’s right. Even if it meant breaking the bond with a close associate.

Remedy Entertainment’s failed multiplayer shooter FBC Firebreak has finally reached the inevitable point we all expected once Remedy admitted it did not perform well on the sales charts despite reaching 1M players. The studio known mostly for its excellent single-player experiences has confirmed that FBC Firebreak will no longer receive new content updates, and its final content update titled Open House is now live for those remaining players to dig into.
The news was revealed with a blog post on the game’s Steam page, where Remedy revealed that the update includes

Tension cracked the room on Gil’s Arena podcast. Kenyon Martin, the 2004 NBA All-Star Game selection, confronted a production member over a jab at his speech impediment. However, he kept his composure and flipped the moment into a lesson. Now, Gilbert Arenas has stepped in, adding his voice to the unfolding drama.
Arenas said, “I don’t know what to say. You can’t tell a man how to respond. Right, that’s one thing you can do when they feel a certain way. Whatever actions you put, if that person wants to respond, a person wants to respond.” Then Gil clarified that the video that Martin came across wasn’t even recent. In fact, the said employee wasn’t even a part of Arenas’ production team then.
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“So, there’s just details in it where the video itself, where the guy was saying it, he wasn’t actually working with us yet with Gil’s Arena. He was reading comments,” Gilbert Arenas clarified. “And so this is a few years ago. So he was reading. It wasn’t recent. It was pushed to King, and like it actually was recent, but it wasn’t a recent thing. He wasn’t on the staff.”
Gilbert Arenas further peeled back the context. At first, the remark about Kenyon Martin came from reacting to online comments while loosely defending the staff. However, time changed everything. Later, the same person met Kenyon in real life, joined the company, and built a genuine bond. Therefore, what began as comment-driven noise evolved into respect.
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“So, the people who held on to it then were going to do this. We don’t get it at Kenyon. And then I guess since it came to light, like, ‘Oh, we have a video.’ And then that’s when he tried to apologize to Kenyon. Because since Kenyon never seen it, he just thought, ‘Oh yeah, we don’t worry about it,” Arenas added.
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“Now he’s seeing it, so now he thinks, oh yeah, I had you in my house, had you on my family, my kids. So it’s one of those things where it’s like, well, no, and it was before, and I had to check.”
Then the ex-Wizards star pulled back the curtain on chaos. He revealed how his father tracks messy internet feuds filled with arguments, leaks, and clever edits. However, that same scrutiny changed everything. His dad rewatched the episode, spotted the context, and halted the outrage. Therefore, the narrative seemingly flipped, exposing how easily clips can mislead.
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Meanwhile, Kenyon Martin explained to the public why he made the decision to call out the production member on the Gil’s Arena podcast.
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Kenyon Martin clarified his move on Gilbert Arenas’ show
Kenyon Martin carried a stutter from childhood in Dallas, where bullying pushed him into silence at school. However, this moment cut deeper. The pain came from trust breaking. Suge, a familiar face who had shared his home and space, crossed a line. Therefore, the sting was personal, layered, and impossible to ignore.
“It was about me addressing the situation, y’all, but it wasn’t about me,” Martin said. “It was for the other people that stutter, that’s been teased and bullied and, like I said, missed out on opportunities because of it. This was about them and letting them know you don’t have to put up with it. You don’t. It’s a special thing that we have. It’s not going anywhere.”
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Meanwhile, Martin also revealed his role on the board of the National Association for Stuttering, where he actively supports efforts to improve speech therapy and develop more effective treatment approaches. “But I am here for you guys. I am here to speak up for you because I once was someone who didn’t have a speaking platform to let people know about this and to speak up for yourself. This is for you guys, man.”
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Tension rose on Tuesday’s Gil’s Arena podcast as the former Knicks hooper replayed a clip of a staffer mocking his stutter. The Michigan forward made it clear this is personal. He gave the verdict. He turned to Suge and called him “disloyal,” drawing a hard line.
“This is what disloyalty and people who don’t respect you look like. People like him. Be careful who you invite into your home. Who you have around your loved ones, your friends, and family. This is what you get. People like this. That talk about something that is near and dear to my heart,” Martin called out on Gilbert Arenas’ show.
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A podcast moment turned into a mirror for loyalty, truth, and timing. Kenyon Martin drew a bold line first. Then Gilbert Arenas unpacked the messy layers behind it. However, context reshaped the outrage. Meanwhile, the message stayed sharp. Respect matters, trust cuts deep, and every voice fighting to be heard deserves its space.

March 20
1897 — Yale beats Penn 32-10 in New Haven, Conn., in the first men’s intercollegiate basketball game.
1918 — The Toronto Arenas (who would become the Maple Leafs) are the first NHL team to play in the Stanley Cup Final. Toronto’s Reg Noble scores two goals with an assist in the first period of a 5-3 win over Vancouver of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.
1939 — In a game of unbeaten teams, Long Island U. defeats Loyola of Chicago 44-32 to win the National Invitation Tournament title.
1954 — In the first televised NCAA championship game, La Salle defeats Bradley 92-76 and sets a record for most points in the title game.
1965 — Gail Goodrich’s 42 points lead UCLA to a 91-80 victory over Michigan in the NCAA basketball championship.
1965 — St. John’s sends Joe Lapchick out a winner, as the Redmen beat Villanova 55-51 to win their fifth National Invitation Tournament championship.
1965 — Bill Bradley scores 58 points to lead Princeton to a 118-82 rout of Wichita State in the NCAA third-place game. UCLA beats Michigan 91-80 to win its second National championship.
1968 — Dave Bing of the Detroit Pistons finishes the season with a league-leading 27.1 average, becoming the first guard in 20 years to lead the NBA in scoring.
1969 — Less than two months after she becomes the first woman to ride in a pari-mutuel race in America, Diane Crump rides her first winner at Gulfstream Park.
1976 — Boston’s John Havlicek becomes the first NBA player to score more than 1,000 points per season for 14 consecutive years.
1988 — Mike Tyson knocks out Tony Tubbs in the second round to retain his world heavyweight title in Tokyo.
2005 — Liz Johnson becomes the first woman to advance to the championship match of a Professional Bowlers Association tour event, but loses by 27 pins to Tommy Jones in the final of the PBA Banquet Open.
2005 — LeBron James, 20, becomes the youngest player to score 50 points in an NBA game, when he scores 56 in the Cavaliers’ 105-98 loss to the Raptors.
2006 — Japan beats Cuba 10-6 in the title game of the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
2010 — Northern Iowa pulls off one of the biggest NCAA upsets in years by knocking No. 1 overall seed Kansas with a 69-67 win. Ali Farokhmanesh buries an open 3-pointer with the shot clock still in the 30s to give the Panthers a four-point lead with 35 seconds left.
2014 — Bernard Tomic loses the shortest completed ATP match on record, lasting only 28 minutes at the Sony Open in his first tournament since having surgery on both hips. Ending a two-month layoff, Tomic wins just 13 points and loses to Jarkko Nieminen 6-0, 6-1. It’s the quickest match since the ATP started keeping such records in 1991.
2020 — After 20 years with the New England Patriots, six-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady officially agrees to move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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March 21
1893 — The first women’s collegiate basketball game is played at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. In this game, each basket is worth 1 point and the freshman class defeats the sophomore class 5-4. The game takes place behind locked doors and men are prohibited from watching.
1941 — Joe Louis knocks out Abe Simon in the 13th round at Olympia Stadium in Detroit to retain the world heavyweight title.
1945 — George Mikan of DePaul scores 53 points in the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament. Mikan matches Rhode Island in offensive output and his teammates add another 44 for a final score of 97-53.
1953 — Rookie Bob Cousy sets an NBA record with 50 points and leads the Boston Celtics to a 111-105 victory over the Syracuse Nationals in a quadruple overtime playoff game. Cousy scores 30 of his points from the foul line.
1959 — California edges West Virginia 71-70 for the NCAA basketball championship. Jerry West scores 28 points for West Virginia.
1959 — Oscar Robertson scores the first triple-double in the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four history, tallying 39 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists in Cincinnati’s 98-85 win over Louisville in the third-place game.
1964 — UCLA caps a 30-0 season with a 98-83 victory over Duke in the NCAA basketball championship. UCLA is the third team to go undefeated and win the title. The victory gives coach John Wooden the first of his 10 NCAA Tournament championships.
1970 — Curtis Rowe scores 19 points and Sidney Wicks adds 17 points and grabs 18 rebounds to lead UCLA to an 80-69 victory over Jacksonville for its fourth consecutive NCAA basketball championship. Jacksonville ends the season with a scoring average of 100.4 points per game, the first team to average more than 100 points in a college basketball season.
1973 — Frank Mahovlich scores his 500th goal as the Montreal Canadiens beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-2.
1984 — Glenn Anderson of Edmonton scores his 50th goal of the season and helps the Oilers beat the Hartford Whalers 5-3. The Oilers become the first NHL team to have three 50-goal scorers in one season.
1985 — Arthur Ashe is nominated for the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
1985 — Washington’s Bobby Carpenter becomes the first U.S.-born player in NHL history to score 50 goals in a season. He reaches the milestone in a 3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at The Forum.
1990 — Brett Hull of St. Louis becomes the sixth player in NHL history to score 70 goals in a season with a goal in the Blues’ 8-6 loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
1994 — Wayne Gretzky ties Gordie Howe’s NHL record of 801 goals.
1996 — Todd Eldredge becomes the first American in eight years to win the gold medal at the World Figure Skating Championships.
2011 — Courtney Vandersloot has 29 points and 17 assists to help Gonzaga beat UCLA 89-75 in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Vandersloot becomes the first player in Division I history — men or women — to record 2,000 points and 1,000 assists in a career.
2014 — Mercer pulls off the biggest upset in the men’s NCAA tournament by knocking off Duke 78-71 in the second round. The 14th-seeded and senior-laden Bears score 11 straight points during the late 20-5 run to clinch the biggest victory in school history.
2015 — Top-ranked Kentucky outworked eighth-seeded Cincinnati for a 64-51 victory to reach the Sweet 16 for the second straight season. The Wildcats improve to 36-0 — the best start to a season for any team.
2019 — Japanese baseball right fielder Ichiro Suzuki finishes his career with a record 4,367 base hits (NPB & MLB) as Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland A’s, 5-4 in Tokyo, Japan.
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March 22
1932 — The blue lines are eliminated with the center red line used to determine offsides in an experiment by the NHL. With both teams out of playoff contention, the league tries it in the New York Americans’ 8-6 victory over Boston.
1952 — The St. John’s Redmen avenge an earlier 41-point loss, beating top-ranked Kentucky 64-57 in the East Regional championship game of the NCAA Division I Men’s Tournament. St. John’s, led by Bob Zawoluk’s NCAA tournament record 32 points, advances to its first Final Four.
1953 — The United States beats host Chile, 49-36 to win the first FIBA World Championship for Women basketball tournament.
1958 — Vern Hatton and Johnny Cox combine for 54 points to give Kentucky an 84-72 victory over Seattle in the NCAA basketball championship.
1959 — Montreal Canadiens forward Dickie Moore sets an NHL record for most points in a season with 96. He scores a goal and an assist in a 4-2 win at New York.
1969 — Lew Alcindor scores 37 points to lead UCLA to the NCAA men’s basketball title with a 97-72 win over Purdue. Alcindor is chosen as MVP for the third straight year.
1969 — West Chester State beats Western Carolina 65-39 to win the first women’s collegiate national championship. The game is played using the six-player format.
1986 — Trevor Berbick wins a unanimous 15-round decision over Pinklon Thomas in Las Vegas for the WBC heavyweight title.
1994 — The NFL announces the addition of the 2-point conversion, the league’s first scoring change in 75 seasons.
1997 — Tara Lipinski’s jumps, the cleanest and the surest in women’s figure skating, lift the 14-year-old into history as the youngest women’s world champion.
2000 — Pat Verbeek of the Detroit Red Wings scores twice in a 2-2 tie with Calgary to become the 28th player in NHL history with 500 career goals.
2007 — Kobe Bryant becomes the fourth player in NBA history to score at least 50 points in three straight games. Bryant scores 60 points in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 121-119 win over Memphis. Bryant joins Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan.
2008 — The first of two assists Colorado captain Joe Sakic has in a 7-5 loss to Edmonton are the 1,000th of his career. He is the 11th player in NHL history to reach the milestone.
2011 — The NFL owners vote to make all scoring plays subject to review by the replay official and referee.
2013 — Florida Gulf Coast, a school so new it wasn’t eligible for the NCAA men’s tournament until last year, upsets second-seeded Georgetown 78-68 in the second round of the South Regional. The Eagles used a 21-2 second-half run to pull away from the Hoyas and hold on in the final minute to become the seventh No. 15 seed to beat a No. 2.
2015 — Oklahoma advances in the NCAA Tournament with a 72-66 victory over Dayton. Sooners coach Lon Kruger becomes the second coach to take four schools to the round of 16.
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March 23
1939 — Long Island University finishes the season undefeated after a 44-32 victory over Loyola of Chicago in the NIT championship.
1944 — Maurice Richard, playing in his second Stanley Cup Playoff game, scores five goals in a 5-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup semifinals. Toe Blake has five assists.
1948 — Kentucky, behind Alex Groza and Ralph Beard, defeats Baylor 58-42 for the NCAA basketball championship.
1956 — Bill Russell leads San Francisco to an 83-71 victory over Iowa in the NCAA basketball championship.
1957 — North Carolina defeats Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in triple-overtime to win the NCAA men’s championship. The Tar Heels win 54-53 to finish the season with a 32-0 record.
1968 — Lew Alcindor scores 34 points to carry UCLA to a 78-55 win over North Carolina in the NCAA basketball championship.
1974 — N.C. State ends UCLA’s streak of seven national championships with an 80-77 victory in double overtime of the NCAA tournament semifinals. David Thompson leads the Wolfpack with 28 points and 10 rebounds while teammate Tom Burleson scores 20 and pulls down 14 rebounds.
1991 — London beats Frankfurt 24-11 in the first World League of American Football game.
1994 — Wayne Gretzky scores his 802nd goal, passing Gordie Howe as the top goal scorer in NHL history. The Los Angeles Kings center scores in the second period for his 62nd NHL record.
1996 — Michelle Kwan caps a nearly perfect season by winning the women’s title at figure skating’s world championships for the United States’ first singles sweep since 1986.
2002 — Brendan Shanahan of the Red Wings scores his 500th career goal, breaking a scoreless tie at 7:48 of the third period. Detroit beats Colorado 2-0.
2002 — Iowa State’s Cael Sanderson becomes the first undefeated four-time NCAA wrestling champion at the NCAA championships. Sanderson beats Lehigh’s Jon Trenge 12-4 to win at 197 pounds and finish his career with a 159-0 record.
2007 — Kobe Bryant becomes the second NBA player to score at least 50 points in four straight games when he has 50 in the Lakers’ 111-105 win at New Orleans. Only Wilt Chamberlain has more, scoring at least 50 points in seven consecutive games during the 1961-62 season.
2010 — The NFL changes its overtime rules for playoff games to give both teams an opportunity to get the ball.
2014 — Quardell Young drives the length of the court for a go-ahead layup with 0.9 seconds left and Wisconsin-Whitewater holds off Williams to win the NCAA Division III men’s championship 75-73. The Warhawks (29-4), whose football team took the national championship in December, win the basketball championship for the second time in three years and fourth time in four trips to the final.
2016 — Guard Russ Smith of the Delaware 87ers scores an NBA D-League-record 65 points in a 140-129 loss to the Canton Charge.
2022 — After 114 consecutive weeks as world #1 female tennis player, 25 year old Australian Ash Barty makes unexpected retirement announcement.
2023 — Harry Kane overtakes Wayne Rooney’s record to become England’s all-time greatest goalscorer in 2-1 victory over Italy with his 54th goal.
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March 24
1936 — Detroit’s Mud Bruneteau ends the longest game in NHL history with a goal after 116 minutes and 30 seconds (six overtimes) to edge the Montreal Maroons 1-0 in the semifinals of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
1941 — Long Island University wins the NIT championship with a 56-42 victory over Ohio.
1945 — NYU battles back from a ten-point deficit with two minutes to go to send the NCAA Tournament national semifinal game into overtime. NYU wins 70-65. At the time, a team got one free throw when fouled near end of game, but could elect instead to inbound the ball. Ohio State is fouled three times, opts to shoot the foul shot and misses each time.
1956 — San Francisco’s Bill Russell has 26 points and 27 rebounds to lead the Dons to an 83-71 win over Iowa and their second-straight national title and 55th consecutive victory, then an NCAA record.
1962 — Paul Hogue scores 22 points and grabs 19 rebounds and Tom Thacker adds 21 to lead Cincinnati to a 71-59 victory over Ohio State for its second NCAA basketball championship.
1970 — Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers wins his only NBA scoring title, accumulating 2,309 points in 74 games for a 31.2 ppg. average.
1973 — Kansas City-Omaha’s Nate “Tiny” Archibald becomes the first player in NBA history to lead the NBA in both scoring (34.0 ppg.) and assists (11.4 apg.) in the same season.
1975 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Chuck Wepner in the 15th round to retain the world heavyweight title in Cleveland.
1975 — Princeton becomes the first Ivy League school to win the NIT title with an 80-69 win over Providence.
1979 — Indiana State, led by Larry Bird, advances to the NCAA Championship game by squeezing past DePaul 76-74. Bird has 35 points, 16 rebounds and 9 assists.
1980 — Louisville beats UCLA 59-54 to win the NCAA basketball title.
1992 — Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux becomes the 36th player in NHL history with 1,000 points, getting an assist in the second period of the Penguins’ 4-3 loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
1994 — Kansas State’s Askia Jones scores 62 points in 28 minutes in a 115-77 victory over Fresno State in the NIT quarterfinals. Jones shoots 18-for-25 from the floor, including 14-of-18 on three-pointers, and 12-for-16 from the line.
2013 — Florida Gulf Coast goes from shocking the men’s college basketball world to downright impressing it. The Eagles beat San Diego State 81-71 to become the first No. 15 seed to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.
2017 — Devin Booker scores 70 points, becoming the sixth different player in NBA history to reach that total, but the Boston Celtics get 34 points from Isaiah Thomas and outlast the Phoenix Suns 130-120.
2018 — Nathan Chen completes six quadruple jumps in the free program to become the first U.S. winner of the men’s world figure skating title since 2009.
2018 — Loyola Chicago romps to a 78-62 victory over Kansas State to cap off a stunning run through the bracket-busting South Regional. The Ramblers (32-5) match the lowest-seeded team ever to reach the Final Four, joining LSU (1986), George Mason (2006) and VCU (2011). The South is the first regional in tournament history to have the top four seeds — including overall No. 1 Virginia — knocked out on the opening weekend.
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March 25
1934 — Horton Smith wins the first Masters golf tournament by one stroke over Craig Wood.
1947 — Holy Cross, led by George Kaftan, beats Oklahoma 58-47 in the NCAA basketball championship.
1958 — Sugar Ray Robinson regains the middleweight title for a record fifth time with a 15-round decision over Carmen Basilio.
1961 — Cincinnati ends Ohio State’s 32-game winning streak with a 70-65 win in the NCAA basketball championship. In the third-place game, St. Joseph’s beats Utah 127-120 in quadruple-overtime.
1967 — UCLA, led by sophomore Lew Alcindor’s 20 points, beats Dayton 79-64 for the NCAA basketball championship.
1972 — Bill Walton scores 24 points to lead UCLA to an 81-76 victory over Florida State and the NCAA basketball title.
1972 — Maryland beats Niagara 100-69 in the NIT championship, becoming the first team to score 100 points in the finals of the tournament.
1973 — The Philadelphia 76ers post the worst mark in NBA history at 9-73 under coaches Roy Rubin (4-47) and Kevin Loughery (5-26).
1982 — Wayne Gretzky becomes 1st NHL to score 200 points in a season.
1995 — Scotty Bowman gets his 900th regular-season coaching victory as the Detroit Red Wings beat the Canucks 2-1 in Vancouver.
2006 — Following the tradition of teenage American women pulling off big upsets, 16-year-old Kimmie Meissner uses the performance of her life to soar to the World Figure Skating Championships title.
2008 — Tennessee gives coach Pat Summitt her 100th NCAA tournament win, a 78-52 rout of host Purdue. The win sends the Lady Vols to the NCAA regional semifinals.
2011 — The Southwest regional is the first in NCAA men’s basketball history with three double-digit seeded teams in the semifinals. Virginia Commonwealth, an 11th seed beats 10th seed Florida State 72-71 in overtime and the top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks beat No. 12 seed Richmond 77-57 in the region’s other semifinal.
2012 — In the NBA’s first quadruple-overtime game since 1997, Joe Johnson scores 37 points and Josh Smith adds 22 as the Atlanta Hawks beat Utah 139-133. The four overtimes tie for the third-longest game in NBA history.
2016 — Klay Thompson scores 40 points and Stephen Curry adds 33 to help the Golden State Warriors become the second team to post back-to-back 65-win seasons with a 128-120 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. The Warriors improve their record to 65-7 following a 67-win season a year ago. The only other team to win at least 65 games in consecutive seasons was Chicago in 1995-96 and 1996-97.
2017 — Arrogate shows his class again in the $10 million Dubai World Cup as he comes from last place to win by an impressive 2 1/4 lengths.
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March 26
1944 — St. John’s, coached by Joe Lapchick, cruises by DePaul 47-39 to become the first back-to-back winner of the National Invitation Tournament.
1946 — Hank Iba’s Oklahoma A&M Aggies beat North Carolina 43-40 for their second straight NCAA men’s basketball title. Bob Kurland scores 23 points, including the first two dunks in NCAA tournament history.
1949 — Alex Groza leads Kentucky to a 46-36 victory over Oklahoma State for the NCAA championship.
1952 — Kansas’ Clyde Lovelette scores 33 points to lead the Jayhawks to a 80-63 win over St. John’s for the NCAA basketball title.
1972 — The Los Angeles Lakers beat Seattle 124-98 to finish the season at 69-13, the best record in NBA history, until the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls finish at 72-10.
1973 — Bill Walton scores 44 points to help UCLA win its record seventh NCAA basketball championship with an 87-66 triumph over Memphis State.
1974 — George Foreman knocks out Ken Norton in the second round in Caracas, Venezuela, to retain the world heavyweight title.
1994 — Utah’s John Stockton becomes the second player in NBA history to collect 2,000 career steals. Stockton gets a pair of steals during a 98-83 loss at Houston to join Maurice Cheeks, who finished his career with 2,310 steals.
2005 — In the NCAA men’s basketball regional finals, Louisville and Illinois make tremendous comebacks to force overtime and advance. Louisville, trailing by 20 to a West Virginia, complete an amazing come-from-behind 93-85 win. Illinois, trailing by 15 with just four minutes to play, went on a dazzling 20-5 run to send Arizona to a crushing 90-89 defeat.
2006 — George Mason stuns No. 1 seed Connecticut 86-84 in overtime to become the first No. 11 seed to reach the men’s Final Four since LSU in 1986.
2011 — Shelvin Mack scores 27 points, including five in overtime, as Butler returns to the Final Four with a 74-71 victory over Florida in the Southeast regional.
2012 — Jaime Alas scores in stoppage time and El Salvador forges a 3-3 tie that ousts the United States from Olympic qualifying. The Americans miss the Olympics for the second time since 1976.
2016 — Breanna Stewart has 22 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks to lead No. 1 UConn to a 98-38 record rout of fifth-seeded Mississippi State in the Bridgeport regional semifinals. The victory supplants the record 51-point win the Huskies had over Texas in the regional semifinals last year that set the NCAA record for margin of victory in the regional rounds and beyond.
2017 — Luke Maye hits a jumper with 0.3 seconds left, and top-seeded North Carolina holds off Kentucky 75-73 in the South Regional to earn a second straight trip to the Final Four and 20th all-time.
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Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

March 20
1897 — Yale beats Penn 32-10 in New Haven, Conn., in the first men’s intercollegiate basketball game.
1918 — The Toronto Arenas (who would become the Maple Leafs) are the first NHL team to play in the Stanley Cup Final. Toronto’s Reg Noble scores two goals with an assist in the first period of a 5-3 win over Vancouver of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.
1939 — In a game of unbeaten teams, Long Island U. defeats Loyola of Chicago 44-32 to win the National Invitation Tournament title.
1954 — In the first televised NCAA championship game, La Salle defeats Bradley 92-76 and sets a record for most points in the title game.
1965 — Gail Goodrich’s 42 points lead UCLA to a 91-80 victory over Michigan in the NCAA basketball championship.
1965 — St. John’s sends Joe Lapchick out a winner, as the Redmen beat Villanova 55-51 to win their fifth National Invitation Tournament championship.
1965 — Bill Bradley scores 58 points to lead Princeton to a 118-82 rout of Wichita State in the NCAA third-place game. UCLA beats Michigan 91-80 to win its second National championship.
1968 — Dave Bing of the Detroit Pistons finishes the season with a league-leading 27.1 average, becoming the first guard in 20 years to lead the NBA in scoring.
1969 — Less than two months after she becomes the first woman to ride in a pari-mutuel race in America, Diane Crump rides her first winner at Gulfstream Park.
1976 — Boston’s John Havlicek becomes the first NBA player to score more than 1,000 points per season for 14 consecutive years.
1988 — Mike Tyson knocks out Tony Tubbs in the second round to retain his world heavyweight title in Tokyo.
2005 — Liz Johnson becomes the first woman to advance to the championship match of a Professional Bowlers Association tour event, but loses by 27 pins to Tommy Jones in the final of the PBA Banquet Open.
2005 — LeBron James, 20, becomes the youngest player to score 50 points in an NBA game, when he scores 56 in the Cavaliers’ 105-98 loss to the Raptors.
2006 — Japan beats Cuba 10-6 in the title game of the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
2010 — Northern Iowa pulls off one of the biggest NCAA upsets in years by knocking No. 1 overall seed Kansas with a 69-67 win. Ali Farokhmanesh buries an open 3-pointer with the shot clock still in the 30s to give the Panthers a four-point lead with 35 seconds left.
2014 — Bernard Tomic loses the shortest completed ATP match on record, lasting only 28 minutes at the Sony Open in his first tournament since having surgery on both hips. Ending a two-month layoff, Tomic wins just 13 points and loses to Jarkko Nieminen 6-0, 6-1. It’s the quickest match since the ATP started keeping such records in 1991.
2020 — After 20 years with the New England Patriots, six-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady officially agrees to move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

NEW YORK — The family of former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner filed a wrongful death lawsuit Friday against the owners and operators of the Costa Rican resort where their 14-year-old son Miller was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in March 2025.
Six months after authorities raided Arenas Del Mar Beachfront & Rainforest Resort, the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit that the defendants

Israel Adesanya has claimed that his year-long absence from fighting led to the sport becoming stale.
The legendary former middleweight champion was unbeatable for years as he rose through the ranks, and helped to bring fans back to arenas after the coronavirus pandemic. However, he has hit a rough patch of recent form with three stoppage defeats in a 1-4 run since 2022.
He returns to action on Saturday night in the main event of UFC Seattle. His opponent is the divisive contender Joe Pyfer, who is known as one of the hardest hitters in the division and could be the final test of Adesanya’s career if things continue to go wrong for the former champion.
Israel Adesanya dismays over disappointing UFC during his absence
For years, Israel Adesanya was not just a dominant champion at 185lb, but an incredibly active one. Between winning the interim title in April of 2019 and finally losing the undisputed to Sean Strickland after two reigns in September of 2023, he fought 11 times – even with the onset of a pandemic in 2020.
Now, it’s borderline unheard of for a world champion in the UFC to fight any more than twice a year, with many only getting out once. Most notably in his own division, Adesanya has watched as Khamzat Chimaev has become a once-yearly fighter after racing into activity in his early run.
“Look at the middleweight division now,” he told ESPN MMA’s Brett Okamoto ahead of his first fight in over a year. “Khamzat was a very active guy coming up, smoking everybody, fighting multiple times – even twice in a month at one point.
“Now that he’s champion I’m not sure what the deal is. Is it visa issues or is it injuries? I’m not sure because now he’s got a fight coming up. But the last active champion was me, the last guy who put it on the line every time and called out the best was me.
“So that’s one thing I can say that people didn’t appreciate until now that I’m watching it. I’m like ‘damn, this game is slow, stuck without me’.
“That, and I’m sure there’s other things as well that people didn’t appreciate. No one appreciated how active I was and what I gave to the game while I was holding the belt.”

A recent Anchorage municipal audit turned up major financial problems in the private management of the George M. Sullivan Arena and two other publicly owned sports facilities. Since then, the situation appears to be worse than was initially understood.
“Suffice to say, we are still very much in the middle of all this‚

Before 2024, Jay-Z had weathered sold-out arenas, his “Ether” battle with Nas in 2001, and the hard lessons of growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant and building an empire with his Roc Nation label and conglomerate.
Now, for the first time, the Grammy winner is opening up about how his eldest daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, stood firmly in what he calls his “darkest moment.”
At 14 years old, Blue Ivy showed the world exactly what that kind of loyalty looks like during one of the most difficult stretches of her dad’s life and what should have been her big debut.
‘You Need to be Disbarred’: Fans Call for ‘Scum’ Lawyer’s Head After Jay-Z Rape Accuser Found to Be Autistic Woman with Several ‘Mistakes’ In Her Story
In a rare and deeply personal GQ interview, the Brooklyn mogul opened up about the last two years after being rattled by an assault scandal that made headlines around the world and Blue’s first major film role, which was overshadowed by the loud conversation about her father.
Days after his 55th birthday, Jay-Z publicly denied the claims in a civil lawsuit alleging a sexual assault by a woman while in the company of Sean “Diddy” Combs and an unnamed woman at a party after the 2000 Video Music Awards.
The Brooklyn native then showed up the next day beside his eldest daughter, his wife Beyoncé, and their family on the red carpet for Blue’s debut in the “Mufasa: The Lion King” premiere. Fans watched closely, reading body language and analyzing every move. Yet the family walked the carpet together, signaling unity and confidence during a moment filled with scrutiny.
As an act of solidarity, Blue wore a jersey in support of her father — a quiet but unmistakable display that carried weight far beyond fashion and a decision that needed no explanation.
“I almost cried,” Jay-Z admitted in a video interview, reflecting on the moment. “Seeing her wear that jersey and show that kind of love — that meant everything to me. As a father, you try to be strong all the time, but when your child shows up for you like that, it hits you in a different place. That was one of those moments I’ll never forget.”
The “Reasonable Doubt” rapper said it was “really hard” to contain his “anger” around the moment that helped him discover how those around him truly feel.
When asked about Blue’s big night and why he didn’t stay home, he said he considered it but wanted to support her big moment like she supported him wearing a jersey with her father’s rap name on the back.
“I was just in the corner, like tears coming down. Seriously,” said the proud dad of three. “To have that, it’s priceless. People can say that [they’ll always be there for you], but it’s very rare that you’re going to have to exercise it. And in the darkest moment for me, I got to see those sorts of things.”
Online, the reaction was swift, emotional, and in many cases deeply personal, with fans recognizing the power of a daughter showing up for her father when the spotlight felt unforgiving. Some saw the gesture as a reminder that family loyalty still matters, even in the glare of celebrity scrutiny.
One commenter wrote, “The way I got teary reading this.” Another added that the moment felt bigger than celebrity drama, posting, “Hearing this is powerful. In the middle of chaos and false accusations, seeing his daughter stand by him like that proves the strength of their bond. Truly touching.”
Giving praise directly to her, one person shared, “Blue Ivy got more emotional intelligence than the average online hater,” while another person predicted, “She’s going to be one amazing woman.”
Another commenter summed up the sentiment: “Her father’s princess right there.”
Behind the scenes, her mother, Beyoncé, took a noticeably protective approach at the time. Rather than flooding social media with pictures from the night, she focused her posts squarely on her daughter’s accomplishment and carefully avoided images that might shift attention away from the young star.
In the end, both Carter and Combs rejected the allegations, and the case came to an end in February 2025 when the plaintiff, through her attorney, Tony Buzbee, moved to dismiss it with prejudice.