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.”

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.

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‚

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
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.

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.

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
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.

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.”

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.
Trending Stories
Benson Boone’s Wanted Man Tour Dates

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.
Trending Stories
Benson Boone’s Wanted Man Tour Dates

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.”

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.”

“Beautiful Things” singer Benson Boone just unveiled a new 2026 concert schedule in continued support of his second studio album, “American Heart.”
Following a successful “American Heart” run — which visited Detroit, Michigan’s Little Caesars Arena in August 2025 — Grammy-nominated pop artist Benson Boone is embarking on another U.S. trek set to begin Tuesday, July 7 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The “Wanted Man Tour” includes notable Midwest stops at Heritage Bank Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis; the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee; and Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois; with the finale date slated for Thursday, September 3 at the Ford Center in Casper, Wyoming.
Tickets to the new U.S. dates officially go on sale this Friday, April 3 at 11 a.m. local venue time on Ticketmaster and bensonboonelive.com. Artist Presale opens at the same time on Wednesday, April 1. Following the general on-sale and leading up to each concert date, fans may also be able find ticket listings on Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and StubHub.
Benson Boone “Wanted Man Tour”
Tue, Jul 7 — PPG Paints Arena; Pittsburgh, PA
Wed, Jul 8 — CFG Bank Arena; Baltimore, MD
Fri, Jul 10 — Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
Sat, Jul 11 — Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
Mon, Jul 13 — Prudential Center; Newark, NJ
Wed, Jul 15 — TD Garden; Boston, MA
Thu, Jul 16 — MVP Arena; Albany, NY
Sat, Jul 18 — Heritage Bank Center; Cincinnati, OH
Sun, Jul 19 — Gainbridge Fieldhouse; Indianapolis, IN
Wed, Jul 22 — Fiserv Forum; Milwaukee, WI
Fri, Jul 24 — Allstate Arena; Rosemont, IL
Mon, Jul 27 — Enterprise Center; St. Louis, MO
Tue, Jul 28 — BOK Center; Tulsa, OK
Thu, Jul 30 — Ball Arena; Denver, CO
Sun, Aug 2 — Numerica Veterans Arena; Spokane, WA
Tue, Aug 4 — Climate Pledge Arena; Seattle, WA
Wed, Aug 5 — Moda Center; Portland, OR
Fri, Aug 7 — SAP Center at San Jose; San Jose, CA
Sat, Aug 8 — Golden 1 Center; Sacramento, CA
Mon, Aug 10 — Crypto.com Arena; Los Angeles, CA
Tue, Aug 11 — Crypto.com Arena; Los Angeles, CA
Fri, Aug 14 — T-Mobile Arena; Las Vegas, NV
Sat, Aug 15 — Pechenga Arena; San Diego, CA
Mon, Aug 17 — Mortgage Matchup Center; Phoenix, AZ
Thu, Aug 20 — Frost Bank Center; San Antonio, TX
Fri, Aug 21 — American Airlines Center; Dallas, TX
Sun, Aug 23 — Smoothie King Center; New Orleans, LA
Tue, Aug 25 — VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena; Jacksonville, FL
Wed, Aug 26 — Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
Fri, Aug 28 — Legacy Arena at the BJCC; Birmingham, AL
Sat, Aug 29 — Simmons Bank Arena; North Little Rock, AR
Mon, Aug 31 — T-Mobile Center; Kansas City, MO
Tue, Sep 1 — CHI Health Center Omaha; Omaha, NE
Thu, Sep 3 — Ford Wyoming Center; Casper, WY

“Beautiful Things” singer Benson Boone just unveiled a new 2026 concert schedule in continued support of his second studio album, “American Heart.”
Following a successful “American Heart” run — which visited Detroit, Michigan’s Little Caesars Arena in August 2025 — Grammy-nominated pop artist Benson Boone is embarking on another U.S. trek set to begin Tuesday, July 7 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The “Wanted Man Tour” includes notable Midwest stops at Heritage Bank Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis; the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee; and Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois; with the finale date slated for Thursday, September 3 at the Ford Center in Casper, Wyoming.
Tickets to the new U.S. dates officially go on sale this Friday, April 3 at 11 a.m. local venue time on Ticketmaster and bensonboonelive.com. Artist Presale opens at the same time on Wednesday, April 1. Following the general on-sale and leading up to each concert date, fans may also be able find ticket listings on Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and StubHub.
Benson Boone “Wanted Man Tour”
Tue, Jul 7 — PPG Paints Arena; Pittsburgh, PA
Wed, Jul 8 — CFG Bank Arena; Baltimore, MD
Fri, Jul 10 — Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
Sat, Jul 11 — Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
Mon, Jul 13 — Prudential Center; Newark, NJ
Wed, Jul 15 — TD Garden; Boston, MA
Thu, Jul 16 — MVP Arena; Albany, NY
Sat, Jul 18 — Heritage Bank Center; Cincinnati, OH
Sun, Jul 19 — Gainbridge Fieldhouse; Indianapolis, IN
Wed, Jul 22 — Fiserv Forum; Milwaukee, WI
Fri, Jul 24 — Allstate Arena; Rosemont, IL
Mon, Jul 27 — Enterprise Center; St. Louis, MO
Tue, Jul 28 — BOK Center; Tulsa, OK
Thu, Jul 30 — Ball Arena; Denver, CO
Sun, Aug 2 — Numerica Veterans Arena; Spokane, WA
Tue, Aug 4 — Climate Pledge Arena; Seattle, WA
Wed, Aug 5 — Moda Center; Portland, OR
Fri, Aug 7 — SAP Center at San Jose; San Jose, CA
Sat, Aug 8 — Golden 1 Center; Sacramento, CA
Mon, Aug 10 — Crypto.com Arena; Los Angeles, CA
Tue, Aug 11 — Crypto.com Arena; Los Angeles, CA
Fri, Aug 14 — T-Mobile Arena; Las Vegas, NV
Sat, Aug 15 — Pechenga Arena; San Diego, CA
Mon, Aug 17 — Mortgage Matchup Center; Phoenix, AZ
Thu, Aug 20 — Frost Bank Center; San Antonio, TX
Fri, Aug 21 — American Airlines Center; Dallas, TX
Sun, Aug 23 — Smoothie King Center; New Orleans, LA
Tue, Aug 25 — VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena; Jacksonville, FL
Wed, Aug 26 — Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
Fri, Aug 28 — Legacy Arena at the BJCC; Birmingham, AL
Sat, Aug 29 — Simmons Bank Arena; North Little Rock, AR
Mon, Aug 31 — T-Mobile Center; Kansas City, MO
Tue, Sep 1 — CHI Health Center Omaha; Omaha, NE
Thu, Sep 3 — Ford Wyoming Center; Casper, WY

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.”

“Beautiful Things” singer Benson Boone just unveiled a new 2026 concert schedule in continued support of his second studio album, “American Heart.”
Following a successful “American Heart” run — which visited Detroit, Michigan’s Little Caesars Arena in August 2025 — Grammy-nominated pop artist Benson Boone is embarking on another U.S. trek set to begin Tuesday, July 7 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The “Wanted Man Tour” includes notable Midwest stops at Heritage Bank Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis; the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee; and Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois; with the finale date slated for Thursday, September 3 at the Ford Center in Casper, Wyoming.
Tickets to the new U.S. dates officially go on sale this Friday, April 3 at 11 a.m. local venue time on Ticketmaster and bensonboonelive.com. Artist Presale opens at the same time on Wednesday, April 1. Following the general on-sale and leading up to each concert date, fans may also be able find ticket listings on Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and StubHub.
Benson Boone “Wanted Man Tour”
Tue, Jul 7 — PPG Paints Arena; Pittsburgh, PA
Wed, Jul 8 — CFG Bank Arena; Baltimore, MD
Fri, Jul 10 — Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
Sat, Jul 11 — Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
Mon, Jul 13 — Prudential Center; Newark, NJ
Wed, Jul 15 — TD Garden; Boston, MA
Thu, Jul 16 — MVP Arena; Albany, NY
Sat, Jul 18 — Heritage Bank Center; Cincinnati, OH
Sun, Jul 19 — Gainbridge Fieldhouse; Indianapolis, IN
Wed, Jul 22 — Fiserv Forum; Milwaukee, WI
Fri, Jul 24 — Allstate Arena; Rosemont, IL
Mon, Jul 27 — Enterprise Center; St. Louis, MO
Tue, Jul 28 — BOK Center; Tulsa, OK
Thu, Jul 30 — Ball Arena; Denver, CO
Sun, Aug 2 — Numerica Veterans Arena; Spokane, WA
Tue, Aug 4 — Climate Pledge Arena; Seattle, WA
Wed, Aug 5 — Moda Center; Portland, OR
Fri, Aug 7 — SAP Center at San Jose; San Jose, CA
Sat, Aug 8 — Golden 1 Center; Sacramento, CA
Mon, Aug 10 — Crypto.com Arena; Los Angeles, CA
Tue, Aug 11 — Crypto.com Arena; Los Angeles, CA
Fri, Aug 14 — T-Mobile Arena; Las Vegas, NV
Sat, Aug 15 — Pechenga Arena; San Diego, CA
Mon, Aug 17 — Mortgage Matchup Center; Phoenix, AZ
Thu, Aug 20 — Frost Bank Center; San Antonio, TX
Fri, Aug 21 — American Airlines Center; Dallas, TX
Sun, Aug 23 — Smoothie King Center; New Orleans, LA
Tue, Aug 25 — VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena; Jacksonville, FL
Wed, Aug 26 — Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
Fri, Aug 28 — Legacy Arena at the BJCC; Birmingham, AL
Sat, Aug 29 — Simmons Bank Arena; North Little Rock, AR
Mon, Aug 31 — T-Mobile Center; Kansas City, MO
Tue, Sep 1 — CHI Health Center Omaha; Omaha, NE
Thu, Sep 3 — Ford Wyoming Center; Casper, WY