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Nov. 29 (UPI) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied ordering the U.S. military to “kill everybody” and said news reports claiming such are “fake news.”

Hegseth was responding to a report by the Washington Post on Friday that accused Hegseth of verbally ordering military personnel to kill all 11 crew members by carrying out a second strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel on Sept. 2.

That strike was the first of many targeting drug vessels in international waters, but the Washington Post only cited anonymous sources to back its claim, which the Defense Department has called fabricated and “fake news,” according to The Guardian.

“We told the Washington Post that this entire narrative was false yesterday,” Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social media post on Friday.

“These people just fabricate anonymously sourced stories out of the whole cloth,” Parnell continued.

“Fake news is the enemy of the people,” he added.

Hegseth went further, calling the Washington Post report “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”

The Washington Post said Hegseth’s alleged verbal order resulted in a second strike on the vessel as two surviving crew members clung to the wreckage, which killed them.

The report on Friday prompted Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., to order inquiries into the matter to determine the facts.

Hegseth said every strike carried out against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean has been legal and only targeted members of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

A group of “former military attorneys” on Saturday released a report saying international law prohibits the targeting of attack survivors and requires the attacking force to “protect, rescue and, if applicable, treat them as prisoners of war,” the Washington Post reported.

The U.S. military has struck 21 vessels whose crews were alleged to be smuggling drugs to the United States and killed 83, according to USA Today.

Takaichi’s suggestion earlier this month that Tokyo could intervene militarily if Taiwan is attacked has enraged Beijing.

Japan has denied a report that said United States President Donald Trump had advised Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke China over Taiwan’s sovereignty.

In a news briefing on Thursday, Japan’s top government spokesperson Minoru Kihara said “there is no such fact” about an article published in The Wall Street Journal claiming that Trump had made such a remark to the Japanese leader.

He declined to comment further on the details of the “diplomatic exchange”.

The row between Asia’s two biggest economies began after Takaichi had suggested earlier this month that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

Takaichi’s remark ignited anger in Beijing.

After the incident, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping pressed the issue in a phone call with Trump on Monday, saying Taiwan’s return was an “integral part of the post-war international order”.

The WSJ reported on Thursday that, shortly after that phone call between the US and Chinese leaders, “Trump set up a call with Takaichi and advised her not to provoke Beijing on the question of the island’s sovereignty”. The report quoted unidentified Japanese officials and an American briefed on the call.

Takaichi said in her reporting of the call with Trump that they discussed the US president’s conversation with Xi, as well as bilateral relations.

“President Trump said we are very close friends, and he offered that I should feel free to call him anytime,” she said.

Beijing, which has threatened to use force to take control of the self-ruled island, also took other punitive steps to register its anger over Takaichi’s initial remarks in parliament on November 7.

It summoned Tokyo’s ambassador and advised Chinese citizens against travelling to Japan.

As the diplomatic row escalated, the Chinese embassy in Tokyo issued a new warning to its citizens on Wednesday, saying there had been a surge in crime in Japan, and that Chinese citizens had reported “being insulted, beaten and injured for no reason”.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry denied any increase in crime, citing figures from the National Police Agency in response that showed the number of murders from January to October had halved compared with the same period in 2024.

Last week, Japanese media reported that China will again ban all imports of Japanese seafood as the diplomatic dispute between the two countries escalated.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun reiterated on Thursday a call for Japan to officially retract Takaichi’s comments.

“The Japanese side’s attempt to downplay, dodge, and cover up Prime Minister Takaichi’s seriously erroneous remarks by not raising them again is self-deception,” Guo told a regular news briefing.

“China will never accept this.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s public silence on Japan’s escalating dispute with China has further frayed nerves in Tokyo.

Some officials worry that Trump may be prepared to soften support for Taiwan in pursuit of a trade accord with China, a move they fear will embolden Beijing and cause conflict in an increasingly militarised East Asia.

“For Trump, what matters most is US-China relations,” said Kazuhiro Maejima, a professor of US politics at Sophia University.

“Japan has always been treated as a tool or a card to manage that relationship,” Maejima told Reuters news agency.

Washington’s envoy to Tokyo has said the US supports Japan in the face of China’s “coercion”, but two senior ruling party lawmakers said they had hoped for more full-throated support from their top security ally in Washington, DC.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has denied leaks ahead of the Budget have damaged the economy, following criticism the speculation has “caused paralysis among businesses and consumers”.

Recent months have been dominated by media reports about which taxes could increase, with multiple potential measures floated by the government.

Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme this was “the single biggest reason why [economic] growth has flatlined”.

In response, Alexander said there was always speculation in the run-up to Budgets but the chancellor had been clear about her priorities.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is widely expected to increase taxes in her Budget on Wednesday to help fill a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans.

Ministers had given strong indications the government was planning to increase income tax rates.

Anonymous briefings to the media from government sources had also suggested Reeves was considering the move – which would have been a clear breach of Labour’s election promise not to raise “the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax”.

However, last week government sources said Reeves had decided against this after better-than-expected economic forecasts.

Governments sometimes choose to leak aspects of their Budget plans to the media, either to test public reaction or prepare the ground for measures so they do not come as a shock to financial markets or voters.

Haldane branded the months of speculation about potential Budget measures a “fiscal fandango”.

“That’s been costly for the economy,” he told the programme.

“It’s caused paralysis among businesses and consumers.”

He said the Budget process was “too lengthy, too leaky, with real costs”.

Haldane acknowledged this “pantomime” had also happened under previous governments, adding that the “budgetary process has been degraded over many years”.

Challenged over whether the leaks had damaged the economy, Alexander told the programme: “People always speculate in advance of a Budget and we have always said ‘wait until the Budget’.”

Defending the government’s approach, she said the Budget process had taken place “on shifting sands”, with a downgrade to productivity forecasts and “a very challenging global economic environment”.

The Conservatives have called for an investigation into pre-Budget leaks, saying they have “real world consequences including for financial markets”.

In a letter to the Treasury’s most senior civil servant, shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: “Either ministers have approved the widespread briefing of confidential information surrounding the Budget, or serious unauthorised leaks have occurred within your department.”

The chancellor is expected to set out a range of smaller tax rises in her Budget, after backing away from increasing income tax rates.

However, the government has not ruled out extending the freeze on income tax thresholds – the level people start paying tax or have to pay higher rates.

The freeze means any pay rise would see people paying more tax, with more people dragged into a higher tax band, or having to pay tax on their income for the first time.

Reeves has also said there will be a focus on cutting the cost-of-living, with the government announcing that rail fares in England will be frozen next year for the first time in decades.

Other priorities set out by the chancellor include reducing NHS waiting lists and the national debt.

Meanwhile, she is also expected to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a limit that means parents can only claim universal credit or tax credits for their first two children.

There has been pressure from Labour MPs to remove the cap, which was introduced under the Conservatives – a move that could cost more than £3bn, according to estimates by the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank.

While she refused to confirm the cap would be scrapped, Alexander said tackling child poverty was “in the DNA of the Labour Party”.

“One of the defining elements of this government for me is about what we can do to ensure that children’s chances in life aren’t determined by the size of their parents’ bank balance,” she added.

The Conservatives have argued against removing the cap, with Stride telling the BBC it was “a matter of fairness” that parents who are on benefits should have to make the same choices about whether they can afford a bigger family as those who are not.

The shadow chancellor told Kuenssberg: “The big choice at this Budget now is does the chancellor have the backbone to control government spending, particularly in the area of welfare where some of those costs are spiralling out of control, take those tough choices and therefore not have to start putting up taxes again in areas that are going to damage the economy.”

However, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said scrapping the cap would be a “victory” and it was “outrageous that it’s taken the Labour government so long to do it”.

He called for the government to “tax the rich”, rather than hit “people out of work or working people who are working really hard while their wages aren’t going up”.

John McDonnell, the former Labour Shadow Chancellor, said he hoped Reeves would announce a “redistributive Budget”.

“That does mean that the heaviest weight should fall on the broadest shoulders,” he told The Westminster Hour on BBC Radio 4.

“That means tax rises for the wealthiest and for the corporations, and for those who are making massive profits at the moment.”

Asked about divisions within Labour, McDonnell said: “What people want is, they want a sense of direction.”

He said Labour has a “massive majority”.

“We can do what we want in terms of getting stuff through Parliament,” he said.

“Yet we seem to be hindered by a lack of direction and some elements of competence as well.”

The former head of UCLA’s football name, image and likeness collective on Thursday denied any impropriety related to a report that revealed efforts by the school’s athletic department to funnel NIL donations through his non-profit charity.

The story published by the muckraking college football website foiaball.com showed email communications from UCLA athletic department officials directing payments intended for Bruins for Life, the onetime NIL collective of the school’s football program, through Shelter 37 Inc., a tax-exempt charity that purports to empower home ownership and help local youth through a variety of activities.

Donating through Shelter 37 would provide a tax deduction not available to those giving directly to Bruins for Life — a standard practice in the NIL sphere — but it also raised questions about a potential conflict of interest and the control of funds given James Washington ran Bruins for Life until recently and remains the president of Shelter 37.

The story also questioned Shelter 37’s charitable endeavors and suggested that UCLA athletic department officials encouraged the evasion of Internal Revenue Service guidance regarding so-called donor-advised funds, directing money to Shelter 37 that couldn’t go to other firms taking a more conservative approach with regard to NIL rules.

Emails obtained by foiaball.com through a public records request showed nearly a half million dollars of donations intended for Bruins for Life going through Shelter 37, with school officials requesting that anyone who sent their money through the latter organization to specify that it be earmarked for football NIL.

Washington said there was nothing untoward about an arrangement that was approved by UCLA and involved full transparency.

“There’s nothing that’s happening between Shelter 37 and UCLA and Bruins for Life that’s in the closet,” Washington, a former UCLA safety who went on to win two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, told The Times. “Everything has been discussed, every move, every act that I’ve taken toward the NIL, every step — bookkeeping and everything — has been handled and handed over to UCLA.”

In a statement, a UCLA athletic department spokesperson said that “UCLA athletics operates with integrity and transparency, in a manner that is consistent with industry best practices. Our development team educates potential donors on a range of giving opportunities, including avenues to support our student-athletes.”

In what Washington described as an unrelated move confirmed by an athletic department official, UCLA recently shifted its football NIL operations to new leadership, allowing Bruins for Life to pivot into an alumni club for football. Washington said the Bruins for Life website was temporarily inactive as part of that transition and that it would still have an NIL component providing community outreach opportunities for football players.

Alongside longtime UCLA donor John Manuck, James had spearheaded the fundraising efforts of Bruins for Life when it debuted in October 2024 as the new NIL arm of UCLA football.

“It’s really exciting,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said at the time, “because it’s going to support our football student-athletes in a real positive way.”

The foiaball.com story contended that the Bruins for Life website stated that it was not a 501(c)(3) organization, meaning that any donations it accepted were not tax deductible. The website directed those wishing to donate to Shelter 37, a 501(c)(3) organization that said it could receive tax-deductible contributions.

The story reported that Shelter 37’s 2024 IRS 990 tax form, published by ProPublica, showed a revenue jump to $4.8 million in 2024, up from $800,000 the previous year. The document stated that $3.6 million had been raised for the Bruins for Life NIL program but only $200 for scholarships for at-risk youth.

Washington said that latter number was misleading because Shelter 37 was not a scholarship-based organization, even though it assisted at-risk children through a variety of community services. The Times reviewed one Shelter 37 tax document reporting nearly a combined seven figures spent on scholarships, education programs and housing.

“This is when people are not fact-checking,” Washington said, “and they’re just putting stuff out there and they’re just trying to make the story bigger than what it needs to be.”

Over the years, Washington said, Shelter 37 has held many community-based events such as turkey drives, football camps for inner-city kids and “I’m going to college” days in which the organization paid for buses to transport students to football games at the Rose Bowl.

The foiaball.com story contended that Shelter 37 was used as a workaround for donor-advised funds that were in limbo. One UCLA athletic department employee, informed of a denial of one donor-advised fund, forwarded the message to other internal fundraisers, along with a message saying, “Just as an FYI. Here is info for Shelter 37 for DAF gifts.”

A new home for donor-advised funds was needed after another NIL firm, Blue Print Sports, ceased its charitable operations in the wake of the IRS recommendation, its legal counsel citing “no path forward.” According to the documents reviewed by foiaball.com, a UCLA athletic department official sent an email to Washington not long after the IRS guidance was issued, informing him of a $15,000 donation through Bank of America that should be directed to Bruins for Life.

Washington said there was nothing illegal about accepting donor-advised funds and that every move made by his organizations was within the rules.

“Any dollar that was given to me, there’s a track record and we have a communication document that shows what came out and how it was received,” Washington said. “They [UCLA athletic officials] know exactly what came into accounts, they know exactly what came out because everything was disclosed and we were communicating and I was acting as a vessel during the time of the Wild, Wild West to try to help UCLA’s football program succeed in this new era of what we call the NIL.”

A referee coach has denied “manhandling” Women’s Super League referee Lisa Benn after she told an employment tribunal that he “forcefully pushed” her during a match.

Benn, 34, claims she was pushed and threatened by Steve Child during a tournament organised by Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) to train staff on video assistant referees (VAR) in March 2023.

English football’s refereeing body investigated the complaint but found Child’s behaviour did not meet the threshold for disciplinary action.

In his tribunal witness statement, quoted to the panel on Wednesday, Child said “100% I did not grab” her, it was a “guiding arm if anything” but “I don’t recall putting any physical contact on her”.

“I lightly put an arm across her back in a sense of ‘let’s go’,” the former Premier League assistant referee added.

Child refuted Benn’s accusation that his treatment of her was “because she is a woman”.

Kick-off had been delayed by an earlier injury and a south London employment tribunal heard Child was trying to speed up the start of play.

He denied grabbing Benn a second time and saying “your card has been marked” after a mass brawl broke out at the end of the fractious youth game.

Carla Fischer, for Benn, said: “A six-foot man who is stressed, who has been told by the claimant to chill, physically moving a five-foot woman on to a pitch.”

She added: “There is absolutely no way this contact could be anything other than grabbing and manhandling, is there?”

Child replied: “That’s not correct.”

He also denied intimidating Benn in the hotel reception at a training camp they both attended on 19 August, 2023, saying: “I think that might be a confusion on Lisa’s part.”

Benn claims she unfairly lost her position as a Fifa international referee because she complained about his behaviour to PGMOL.

She alleged she had been told by the organisation’s chief refereeing officer, Howard Webb, and his wife Bibi Steinhaus-Webb – then the head of women’s referees – she would not be punished for coming forward.

“There is a fear in the women’s group to raise grievances, to raise concerns, because of the fear of consequences,” Benn told the hearing on Tuesday.

The tribunal continues.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a request from the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena seeking a temporary restraining order in their attempt to keep UCLA football games at the Rose Bowl, saying those entities had not demonstrated an emergency that would necessitate such an action.

Judge James C. Chalfant said previous cases in which the New York Yankees, New York Jets and Minnesota Twins were barred from moving games did not apply to this situation because those teams were scheduled to play in a matter of days or weeks and UCLA’s next scheduled game at the Rose Bowl after its home season finale against Washington on Nov. 22 isn’t until the fall of 2026.

The judge also said there was no indication that the Rose Bowl or Pasadena would suffer imminent financial harm because a contract to construct a field-level club in one end zone had not been signed.

The legal saga is far from over. Chalfant suggested the plaintiffs’ attorneys seek discovery information regarding the school’s discussions with SoFi Stadium and file a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Nima Mohebbi, an attorney representing the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena, said he had filed a public records request in an attempt to gather information about those discussions and was pleased with the judge’s statements.

“Even though he found that there was no immediate emergency,” Mohebbi said, “he made very clear in a lot of his statements that there’s irreparable harm, that UCLA has an obligation to play at the Rose Bowl through 2044 and we’re very confident in our facts of this case. So I think all in, we feel very, very good.”

After the hearing ended, Mary Osako, vice chancellor of strategic communications, said in a statement that “the court’s ruling speaks for itself. As we have said, while we continue to evaluate the long-term arrangement or UCLA football home games, no decision has been made.”

UCLA has played its home football games at the Rose Bowl since 1982. In 2014, Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system, signed a long-term lease amendment that did not include an opt-out clause in exchange for the stadium committing to make nearly $200 million in improvements through the issue of public bonds. When the judge asked attorneys representing UCLA if they intended to terminate the agreement, they shook their heads in denial.

But Mohebbi accused UCLA of participating in a shell game in which it had furtively explored options for moving to SoFi Stadium.

“What they really want is to have a back-room discussion where they can offer some certain amount of money and pay the city off without having to account for this publicly,” Mohebbi said. “… UCLA has not only attempted to terminate [the contract], they have indicated in no uncertain terms that they are terminating.”

After Jordan McCrary, an attorney representing UCLA, contended that his counterparts in the dispute refused to engage with the school in resolution discussions, Mohebbi said, “there’s nothing to talk about. They have an obligation — we’re not negotiating a way out of this agreement.”

McCrary disputed Mohebbi’s contention that UCLA attorneys had signaled an intention to leave the Rose Bowl through direct conversations between counsel, saying “we believe they were settlement negotiations and we don’t believe they’re admissible” in future court proceedings.

When a UCLA attorney contended during the roughly 80-minute court session that the school’s relationship with the Rose Bowl was breaking down, Chalfant said, “I don’t know why UCLA can’t just show up and play football at the Rose Bowl. You don’t need to talk to them at all.”

Chalfant said he did not agree with the UCLA attorneys’ contention that the Rose Bowl lease amounted to a personal services contract for which specific performance — essentially an order compelling the Bruins to remain tenants — was not available. The judge said specific performance could be available in a situation involving an actual breach or an anticipatory breach of the contract.

Rose Bowl officials have filed litigation intended to compel the Bruins to honor a lease that runs through the 2043 season, saying that monetary damages would not be enough to offset the loss of their anchor tenant.

They are also seeking to prevent the case from being settled through arbitration.

“I know UCLA really wants to have this out of the public sphere,” Mohebbi said, “but the reality is this is a public interest case and there are issues here that absolutely require this case to be in a public forum.

“We’re talking about two public entities. This is not the Rams, or this is not the Lakers. This is a public institution playing with public money going up against another public institution that relies on this other public institution to protect its own taxpayers from dipping into the general fund that goes to things like police services, fire services. I mean, God forbid there’s a fire like the Eaton fire this last year that we’re not going to be able to even cover the bond payments through the general reserves.”

Cambodia says the mine that wounded four Thai soldiers was a remnant of past conflicts, but Bangkok says the explanation is insufficient.

Cambodia has denied laying new landmines along its border with Thailand after Bangkok suspended the implementation of an enhanced ceasefire signed last month over an explosion that wounded four Thai soldiers.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Cambodian Ministry of National Defence expressed regret at the landmine explosion the previous day in Thailand’s Sisaket province near the countries’ shared border, saying the blast had taken place in an old minefield.

The ministry said such unexploded ordnance was “remnants of past conflicts” and urged Thai soldiers to avoid patrols in mine-contaminated zones.

Despite the dispute, “both military forces on the front lines had communicated with each other, and, as of now, the situation remains calm, with no tension having been reported,” the ministry added.

Thailand and Cambodia signed their enhanced truce in Malaysia last month after long-running territorial disputes between the Southeast Asian neighbours led to five days of combat in late July.

The conflict, which killed at least 48 people and temporarily displaced an estimated 300,000, marked their worst fighting in recent history.

The enhanced ceasefire, signed in the presence of United States President Donald Trump, sought to build on an earlier truce brokered in July and included the withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons.

It also called for Bangkok’s release of 18 Cambodian prisoners of war.

The Thai government on Tuesday insisted the Cambodian explanation was insufficient and said it was halting the release of the Cambodian soldiers, which had been slated for Wednesday.

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said his country’s decision would be explained to the US and Malaysia, the chair of the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has facilitated the ceasefire process.

“What they [Cambodia] have said is not sufficient. We have to see what Cambodia’s stance is from now on,” he said.

The Thai military late on Monday said officials had inspected the landmine explosion site in Sisaket and found an explosion pit and three more antipersonnel mines.

Spokesperson Major General Winthai Suvaree said the explosion occurred in an area that Thai soldiers had previously secured. He said that since October 17, the soldiers had removed landmines and laid defensive barbed wire there.

But the wire was destroyed on Sunday, and the soldiers checking the site on Monday stepped on the mine, Winthai said.

“The evidence led to the conclusion that intruders secretly removed the barbed wire and laid the landmines in the Thai territory, targeting the personnel who conduct regular patrols there,” Winthai said, according to the Bangkok Post.

“The act shows Cambodia’s insincerity in reducing conflict and reflects hostility which violates the jointly signed declaration,” he added.

The military said a sergeant lost his right foot in the explosion and the other three suffered minor injuries from shrapnel or the impact of the blast.

There was no immediate comment from the US or Malaysia.

While the Thai-Cambodian truce has generally held since July 29, both countries have traded allegations of ceasefire breaches.

Analysts said a more comprehensive peace pact adjudicating the century-long border dispute at the core of the conflict is needed.

Jeremy Renner, a star in the “Avengers” universe and the HBO series “Mayor of Kingstown,” is facing allegations of misconduct from filmmaker Yi Zhou.

In an extensive series of posts on Instagram last week Zhou alleges that beginning in June Renner sent “a string of unwanted / unsolicited pornographic images.” After a relationship over calls and text, according to Zhou, “The first physical encounter was not consensual. … Later interactions became consensual, yet the earlier incident remained deeply distressing.” Another post claims that Renner “threatened to call immigration/ICE on me,” which left her “shocked and frightened.”

A representative for Renner responded to a request for comment Sunday by saying, “The accusations being made by this individual are totally inaccurate and untrue.”

Many of Zhou’s Instagram posts, which include images of supposed messages between the two of them and what appear to be candid, personal photos of the actor, added the hashtag “#CancelJeremyRenner.”

Zhou, born in China and based in Los Angeles, has directed two films, the documentary “Masters of Cinema: Chronicles of Disney” and the animated “Stardust Future,” which she says Renner participated in and then refused to promote.

People reported that Renner’s attorney, Marty Singer, sent Zhou a cease-and-desist letter to prevent further “salacious lies” on Friday. A message to Singer’s office Sunday was not immediately returned.

In one of her posts, Zhou wrote of her motivation for speaking out. “My intention is not retaliation but transparency,” she said. “I have the right to protect my professional reputation, to set boundaries, and to correct misinformation when selective reporting distorts the facts.” She posted a cease-and-desist letter she purportedly emailed to Renner on Instagram asking him to stop “any form of verbal abuse, yelling or intimidation.”

In a 2025 interview with the Guardian promoting his memoir “My Last Breath,” which chronicles the 2023 accident involving an industrial snowcat that nearly killed him, Renner denied previous allegations of misconduct — substance abuse and a verbal threat — that came out in a custody dispute with his ex-wife Sonni Pacheco over their daughter, Ava.

“Being accused of things you’ve not done, right? That doesn’t feel good to anybody,” Renner said. “It certainly doesn’t feel good when you’re a celebrity and it’s known to everybody.”