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ESPN has announced that Shannon Sharpe is stepping away from First Take show amid rape allegations against the NFL Hall of Famer. Sharpe joined First Take in 2023.

Sharpe released a statement via social media about not returning to ESPN’s First Take. “My statement is found here and this is the truth. The relationship in question was 100 % consensual,” he began. “At this junction I am eliciting to step aside temporarily from my ESPN duties. I will be devoting my time to my family, and responding and dealing with these false and disruptive allegations set against me. I plan to return to ESPN at the start of the NFL preseason. I sincerely appreciate the overwhelming and ongoing support I have received from my family, friends and colleagues.”

Before Sharpe released his statement, Deadline reported that the network was about to bench him anyway. “Whether or not Sharpe returns to First Take in subsequent weeks is TBD apparently,” the report states.

Per CNN, an ESPN spokesperson also released a statement: “This is a serious situation, and we agree with Shannon’s decision to step away.”

Shannon Sharpe faces a $50 million rape lawsuit

In a April 20-filed lawsuit, a now 21-year-old Jane Doe alleges that Sharpe, who’s 56, raped and abused her twice in Las Vegas while they were in a relationship after meeting in 2023 — making the accuser 19 at the time. Jane Doe is seeking $50 million in damages from Sharpe.

As Deadline reported, the lawsuit alleges “assault, sexual assault, battery and sexual battery, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

“After many months of manipulating and controlling Plaintiff — a woman more than thirty years younger than he — and repeatedly threatening to brutally choke and violently slap her, Sharpe refused to accept the answer no and raped Plaintiff, despite her sobbing and repeated screams of ‘no,’” the suit stated, according to CNN.

Shannon Sharpe offered to pay his accuser $10 million to settle the lawsuit, but denies the allegations

On April 22, via Deadline, Sharpe’s lawyer Lanny Davis shared that Sharpe offered to write Jane Doe a $10 million check with the goal of quietly settling the lawsuit, which has also “raised concerns” at ESPN. Houston-based attorney Tony Buzbee is representing the accuser.

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up against those with power, fame and money,” Buzbee said in a statement to CNN. “I look forward to pressing this case in court.”

Sharpe has denied all the allegations, appearing in an Instagram video on Tuesday.

“This is a shakedown. I’m going to be open, transparent and defend myself because this isn’t right,” Sharpe said in the clip. “This is all being orchestrated by Tony Buzbee… I believe he is going to release a 30-second clip of a sex tape that tries to make me look guilty and plays into every stereotype you can possibly imagine.”

As of Thursday, Gilbert Arenas’ 18-year-old son, Alijah Arenas, has been placed in a medically induced coma after a car accident in Los Angeles, according to a tweet from ESPN’s senior NBA insider Shams Charania.

Alijah is a top prospect at the University of Southern California. Per TMZ, Alijah was driving his Tesla Cybertruck at the time of the accident.

Alijah Arenas is the oldest child of NBA star Gilbert Arenas

According to People, Gilbert shares four kids, Izela, Alijah, Hamiley and Aloni, with his ex (and longtime partner) Laura Govan. He also shares a daughter named Gia with his ex-girlfriend Lindsey Faulk.

In April 2025, Alijah and his dad sat down for an interview at the McDonald’s All-American Game.

“Our personalities are a little the same. I feel like that’s my dad’s dream too, that I could get to that level,” Alijah said about following in his dad’s footsteps.

Gilbert added, “It’s very surprising watching him actually dive into the game, you know, physically, mentally,” of his son.

Alijah Arenas is ranked the No. 1 shooting guard

As of December 2024, Alijah was ranked as the Class of 2026’s No. 1 shooting guard, according to One3. Gilbert shared a little insight into his coaching style when it comes to his son.

“Ain’t no days off … We get 3 [hundred or] 400 shots up before school,” he said on Paul George’s podcast, People reported. “He’s coachable … depending on what day it is in the mornings we’ll get up at like 5:30 so he [practices] an hour and a half. [He goes to school, comes home and then] works out and we got lifting right after and then we got more shooting, more dribbling.”

Parents are calling for their children to retain access to their phones at all times after a stabbing incident at West Potomac High School in Virginia.

They say they were left without news for “at least half an hour” after an unnamed 16-year-old was stabbed by another student on Wednesday.

What happened at West Potomac High School?

A 16-year-old student was stabbed just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday after a fight broke out at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia. The student is in stable condition at a nearby hospital, WTOP reported.

Per law enforcement, a 15-year-old student was taken into custody and will be charged with malicious wounding. Police reportedly responded to the incident within minutes.

“While there’s a sense, obviously, of shock that this would happen at West Potomac High School, one of our high schools here in Fairfax County, I’m very proud of the response of our staff to this incident,” Superintendent Michelle Reid said. “They responded quickly and admirably and may have saved a life today.”

Some parents are unsatisfied with how the school communicated about the stabbing incident

Although parents were notified of the incident through the school’s alert system, some said they didn’t receive the news for at least half an hour and weren’t able to pick up their children from school early.

“At the end of the day, I think that’s all these parents want, is to get their kids, hug their kids,” Bill Beal, the parent of a student who saw the stabbing happen, said. “There’s more than one victim in this — people that witnessed it.”

Others have criticized the phone policy in place for Fairfax County public schools. It requires students to silence their phones and put them away during instructional periods. Although they recognize the phones can be a distraction, some parents say retaining access to a phone is essential in case of an emergency.

“I think this is the reason kids nowadays, in this day and age, they need their phones to be able to contact parents,” parent Joanne Boyce, told NBC News. “We didn’t get any kind of notification from the school for at least half an hour afterwards, which I understand their busy dealing with that, but parents need to know these things.”

“I have never agreed with the cellphone policy anyway, and this is why she needs to have her phone,” Cheryl Brewer, whose granddaughter witnessed the stabbing, added.

New security measures are being set up

The high school is currently under “Secure the Building” status, which means exterior doors are locked. Fairfax County schools also started rolling out weapon detection systems. A pilot program is deploying 15 devices to schools selected at random.

The Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. chapter at Miami University in Ohio received a 15-year suspension on April 11 after current members and alumni were accused of violent hazing against four new recruits in the fall of 2024.

The institution is hoping the suspension will help erase the culture of hazing from the chapter, which was already on probation for a hazing incident in 2022.

The chapter was first permanently banned, then it was changed to a 15-year suspension

The fraternity, which chartered the Kappa Delta chapter on the Miami University campus in 1980, has been multiple several times of hazing new recruits. 

Wesley Highley, the associate director of the Office of Community Standards, first permanently banned the fraternity from campus on March 6. The sanction was then reduced to 15 years after fraternity leaders appealed the decision, according to The Enquirer. The chapter is suspended until March 15, 20240.

Jayne Brownell, the senior vice president for student life, said the case was serious and required significant disciplinary action.

“Our hope is by that time, the alumni from Miami will no longer be an influence on the culture for a recolonization,” she wrote in an April 11 letter announcing the suspension. “There may be a time when Kappa Alpha Psi could become a thriving chapter after a long enough period of time has passed to erase this culture.”

Kappa Alpha Psi “forfeits all the rights and privileges afforded to them by University policy” and may have to undergo mandatory anti-hazing training once the suspension is lifted.

What is alleged to have happened at Miami University in fall 2024?

Four students pledging for Kappa Alpha Psi were allegedly beaten with paddles and canes during “nightly hazing rituals,” according to law firm Merriman Legal LLC representing one of the students, as reported by The Enquirer.

The hazing reportedly lasted from late August to early October. Students were allegedly beaten up to 60 times a night, were forced to do wall sits, and were subjected to verbal humiliation until meetings that lasted until 3 a.m., among other strict rules they had to follow.

The student represented by the firm “endured five weeks of beatings, sleep deprivation, and psychological manipulation.” Attorney Tom Merriman described him to The Enquirer as a “shell of himself” and as being in a “catatonic” state.

The firm also said that beatings were allegedly performed during “unauthorized meetings” attended by alumni members of the fraternity. These alumni were also involved in a 2022 hazing incident that resulted in Kappa Alpha Psi being put on probation at the time.

Kappa Alpha Psi is the second fraternity at Miami University to receive a recent suspension

This year, another fraternity was suspended after being accused of hazing. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was suspended in February after the university investigated a report of hazing. New members were allegedly forced to ingest chewing tobacco, do wall sits while covered in baby oil, along with other “inhumane” activities, The Enquirer reported.

Hazing is illegal and prohibited at Miami University.

“Miami seeks to promote a safe environment where students may participate in activities and organizations without compromising their health, safety, or welfare,” the university indicated on its website.

It qualified hazing as any act of initiation or membership reinstatement into a student organization or athletic team “that causes or creates a substantial risk of causing mental or physical harm to any person, including coercing another to consume alcohol or another drug.”

“Failure to intervene, prevent or report any act of hazing may also constitute a violation,” the website reads.

Under Trump’s tariff changes, both companies face new import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods and will lose the duty-free exemption for shipments under $800. What was the de minimis rule? Previously, the de minimis rule allowed packages […]

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been known for his unproven and fringe views, including attempts to link autism to factors such as vaccines without evidence.

Now, a new plan to gather and analyze patient data from various sources across the country as part of a massive autism study is raising alarm bells from those who worry it will fuel misinformation and could be used for nefarious purposes.

Compiling data and creating a new registry for autism

CBS News reported that the National Institutes of Health, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services, announced earlier this week that it would compile patient data relating to autism from a wide variety of sources to facilitate a study of the causes of autism Kennedy previously announced. The new database will combine data from private sources such as testing labs and pharmacy chains with patient information from government agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Services, as well as possibly sourcing patient data from Medicaid and Medicare.

The government will additionally create a new registry that it will use to track people with autism, which will be integrated into the larger database. Between 10 and 20 groups of researchers, coming from outside the government but chosen by NIH, would be granted access to this data to conduct research into the causes of autism. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya touts the effort as a way to do unprecedented research on autism, as well as an opportunity to streamline access to data that is often hard to obtain or cross-reference. Bhattacharya also promises that “state of the art protections”  would be put in place to protect patients’ confidentiality.

Fear and skepticism over RFK Jr. and the government’s intentions

Despite assurances that the data will be used carefully and securely, this new plan has raised serious concerns about the intentions of this new database and “autism registry.” Kennedy has long pushed notions that there has been a massive spike in autism cases, making the idea that environmental factors and vaccinations are largely to blame despite a lack of scientific evidence for these proposals. Recently, Kennedy rejected the thought that increased diagnoses come from more comprehensive testing and expanded definitions of autism. He also offended many people with his negative depiction of people with autism as people who would never do basic activities like date, play sports or hold jobs.

People with autism and skeptics of government overreach have raised alarm bells about the new registry and its potential for misuse.

“As an autistic adult, I admit this makes me uncomfortable,” one person wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “It’s committing mass HIPAA violations on behalf of a public eugenicist who sees autism as something to be ‘cured.’”

As an autistic adult, I admit this makes me uncomfortable. It’s committing mass HIPAA violations on behalf of a public eugenicist who sees autism as something to be “cured.” The registry is not meant to help autistic folk, I assure you. https://t.co/J3TteksbaQ— Mímir (@eyeofthephantom) April 23, 2025

Another said, “Autism registers can and will be used against autistic people to deny agency and care,” adding, “This is a terrible idea.”

As I’ve mentioned, autism registers can and will be used against autistic people to deny agency and care. This is a terrible idea. https://t.co/tiFDGyrCtw— Veronica 🍃🌹🥑🚊✊🇵🇱 (@ladyvoldemort) April 22, 2025

Some have even raised concerns that the registry could be used for eugenic policies, pointing to past regimes that have forcibly sterilized or even killed people with disabilities and others labeled “undesirable.”

wth? Tracking autistic people in the US like social policies of “eugenics” in Nazi Germany that placed biological improvement of German people by selective breeding?These NAZI policies were then used to justify the involuntary sterilization and mass-murder of those deemed… https://t.co/61WcL2vdTQ— LynnZ (@ZemanLynnZ) April 23, 2025

With plans moving ahead to create the new autism registry and consolidated health database, it remains to be seen how this newly amassed data will be used or misused. But the views of the people gathering the data and the potential for abuse are already raising major red flags about this unprecedented use of Americans’ health information.

Nearly half of Americans in the U.S. live in areas with failing air quality, according to the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report. Experts warn the nation’s air pollution crisis is worsening, putting millions at greater risk for respiratory and cardiovascular issues. Without proper policies in place, the outlook for cleaner air remains bleak.

Pedro Pascal is standing by his trans sister, Lux Pascal, and the LGBTQ+ community at large.

According to People, while attending the U.K. premiere of Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts*, the actor wore a white T-shirt with “Protect the Dolls” emblazoned on it.

Connor Ives designed the shirt to honor trans women

The “Protect the Dolls” shirt, which Pascal wore earlier this month during his 50th birthday celebration on April 6, per Deadline, was designed by Conner Ives. The outlet reported that the tee was shown at Ives’ runway show during London Fashion Week in February and is part of a larger effort by Ives to highlight the atrocities trans women around the world face, with “dolls” being a term of endearment the LGBTQ+ community uses to refer to transgender women.

Ives told The New York Times he was inspired to use fashion as a means to advocate for trans people politically and socially.

He said, “In the modern day, what is more ubiquitous than the graphic T-shirt?”

Ives added, “It was very reactive. I knew I wanted to say something, given what we’ve observed in the last few months with the U.S. government and the current political regime.”

Other celebrities have been spotted wearing the tee, including Troye Sivan, who wore it while performing with Charli XCX during her Coachella set.

Pascal’s choice of wearing the shirt was especially timely as the U.K. Supreme Court ruled on April 16 that the legal definition of a woman is rooted solely in biological sex. The decision, which the U.K. government said will offer “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers, according to The Athletic, actively pushes trans women out of equality law.

Proceeds from the “Protect the Dolls” tee are being donated to Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline that provides peer support for transgender people, The New York Times reported.

Pascal is an avid supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and has been particularly vocal about trans womens’ rights since Lux came out in February 2021, People reported. He’s publicly stood by his sister amid her transition. According to LGBTQ+ outlet Them, Pascal has described Lux as “one of the most powerful people and personalities I’ve ever known.”

Lux, an actor and activist, graduated from The Juilliard School in New York City in 2023.

In February, Pascal took to Instagram to share his support of trans people with a photo of a poster that reads, “A world without trans people has never existed and never will.”

“I can’t think of anything more vile and small and pathetic than terrorizing the smallest, most vulnerable community of people who want nothing from you, except the right to exist,” Pascal wrote in a comment on the post.

Pascal also shared a video on his Instagram Stories at the time of Carla Antonelli, Spain’s first trans senator, who called out her colleagues for being anti-trans and “making our lives absolutely unbearable” while addressing Parliament, Ireland’s LGBTQ+ media outlet GCN reported. In addition to that clip, he shared a video of late trans activist Cecilia Gentili, including part of her speech at the New York University Lavender Graduation ceremony in 2023.

“Know who you are. Progress is inevitable,” Pascal wrote along with the video, referencing comments Gentili made.

A new report found that child welfare investigations in New York City disproportionately target low-income Black and Latino families. This has led them to lose or be denied employment. Research was conducted by legal advocacy group Legal Services NYC, who sifted through data from January 2020 through July 2022 from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.

The report conducted by Legal Services NYC found that Black and Latino New Yorkers accounted for 81% of investigations, although they make up 48% of the city population.

“There’s an overpolicing now that’s occurring, that is disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic folks in New York City and survivors of domestic violence,” Washcarina Martinez Alonzo, a senior staff attorney with Legal Services NYC, said in an interview with Gothamist.

Most instances of neglect are actually poverty

In 2022, over 70% of substantiated reports were categorized as neglect. However, some experts say that there is no difference between neglect of a child by failing to provide basic needs and instances of poverty.

Joyce McMillan, the executive director of the nonprofit JMAC for Families, told Gothamist that families are being penalized for being poor in most cases. For instance, investigations regarding neglect can be conducted over a crowded home, a lack of food in the home, or the use of candles over electricity because they can’t afford the bill.

“Once a family is investigated, they’re at risk of being separated,” McMillan said, adding that what they need is more support and money.

Reports of neglect can show up in background checks for eight years. It can bar some families from certain jobs involving children and hinder their ability to find employment.

Anyone can report allegations of domestic violence

The report found that 28% of investigations between 2020 and 2022 involved domestic violence. It also noted that anyone can report allegations of abuse and deploy local child welfare agencies to investigate. This system can be used to make false accusations, according to the report.

“Anybody can make this call. Your neighbor can make this call. Your landlord can make this call. Your abusive ex can make this call. Anybody can make it,” Martinez Alonzo said. “They don’t ask for the information of the folks making the report, and suddenly you get child welfare involvement in your life.”

In these instances, the consequences can be long-lasting, as reports for abuse can appear in background checks for 28 years.

“You can’t be an MTA bus driver, kids may be on your bus,” Martinez Alonzo. said. “You can’t work at an ice skating rink, you can’t work at a bowling alley, these are places where children may be. You can’t work at an amusement park, you can’t work in the library, you can’t be a janitor in a school.”

Three fraternity members charged in connection with the alleged hazing death of Caleb Wilson were expelled from Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

Caleb McCray and Kyle Thurman were expelled via the Beta Sigma chapter, while Isaiah Smith was expelled via the Lambda Alpha chapter, according to WBRZ. Their names are listed on the organization’s website under the “Expelled Persons” directory.

The three members’ alleged involvement with Wilson’s death

McCray, Thurman and Smith were expelled following their alleged involvement in the death of Wilson, a Southern University student who died in March. Smith had the title of “Dean of Pledges” for the chapter and was in charge of the new members when Wilson died, according to WBRZ.

He and Thurman were charged with felony hazing, while McCray was charged with manslaughter and felony hazing.

Wilson died after attending an off-campus pledge event for the fraternity. He was allegedly punched in the chest as part of an initiation ritual, which led to a seizure and death.

Caleb Wilson’s family is raising awareness about hazing

Since Wilson’s death, his family has put up billboards across New Orleans to draw attention to the incident and hazing. The campaign started while Omega Psi Phi members are in the city for their Ninth District Meeting.

“Caleb Wilson. He had a future. Hazing took it away,” one sign reads, according to WWL Louisiana.

His family has been in touch with Louisiana State Representative Delisha Boyd, who introduced the Caleb Wilson Act to prevent hazing.