kill

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.

Two people were killed in the strikes on the capital, and a woman died in a combined missile and drone attack on the broader Kyiv region, officials said.

Russian drone and missile strikes in and around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have killed at least three people and wounded dozens of others, officials said, as Ukrainian representatives travelled to the United States for talks on a renewed push to end the war.

“Russia shot dozens of cruise and ballistic missiles and over 500 drones at ordinary homes, the energy grid, and critical infrastructure,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X on Saturday.

“While everyone is discussing points of peace plans, Russia continues to pursue its ‘war plan’ of two points: to kill and destroy,” he added.

The Kyiv City Military Administration said two people were killed in the strikes on the capital in Kyiv. A woman died, and eight people were wounded in a combined missile and drone attack on the broader Kyiv region, according to the regional police.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 29 people were wounded in Kyiv, noting that falling debris from intercepted Russian drones hit residential buildings. He also said the western part of Kyiv had lost power.

Kyiv’s military administration head, Tymur Tkachenko, said in a social media post that a 42-year-old man was killed by a drone, while the man’s 10-year-old son was taken to hospital with “burns and other injuries”.

“The world should know that Russia is targeting entire families,” Tkachenko said, adding that the son was the only child recorded among the injured so far.

Following the attacks on Kyiv, EU Ambassador Katarina Mathernova cast doubt on Russia’s stated interest in a peace deal.

“While the world discusses a possible peace deal. Moscow answers with missiles, not diplomacy,” Mathernova said in a post on X.

Ukraine team heads to US

On the diplomatic front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his negotiators had left for Washington to seek a “dignified peace” and a rapid end to the war begun by Russia in 2022.

Zelenskyy is under growing pressure from Washington to agree to a US proposal to end the war that critics say heavily favours Moscow.

The Ukrainian team is being led by former defence chief Rustem Umerov, following the resignation on Friday of his chief of staff Andriy Yermak amid a corruption probe.

“The task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” he posted on X.

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and head of the Ukrainian delegation Rustem Umerov, together with the team, is already on the way to the United States. Rustem delivered a report today, and the task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 29, 2025

“Ukraine continues to work with the United States in the most constructive way possible, and we expect that the results of the meetings in Geneva will now be hammered out in the United States.”

At Kyiv’s insistence, US President Donald Trump’s initial 28-point plan to end the war was revised during talks in Geneva with European and US officials. However, many contentious issues remain unresolved.

Black Sea attacks

Separately on Saturday, an official from the SBU security service said that Ukraine had hit two tankers used by Russia to export oil while skirting Western sanctions with marine drones in the Black Sea.

The joint operation to hit the so-called “shadow fleet” vessels was run by the SBU and Ukraine’s navy, the official told the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity.

Turkish authorities have said that blasts rocked two shadow fleet tankers near Turkiye’s Bosphorus Strait on Friday, causing fires on the vessels, and rescue operations were launched for those on board.

The SBU official said both tankers – identified as the Kairos and Virat – were empty and on their way to the port of Novorossiysk, a major Russian oil terminal.

“Video [footage] shows that after being hit, both tankers sustained critical damage and were effectively taken out of service. This will deal a significant blow to Russian oil transportation,” the official said. They did not say when the strikes took place.

Ukraine has consistently called for tougher international measures for Russia’s “shadow fleet”, which it says is helping Moscow export vast quantities of oil and fund its war in Ukraine despite Western sanctions.

Despite being denied a three-peat in the Southern Section Division 1 playoffs, the Mater Dei High girls volleyball team still ended the season a champion — and ranked No. 1 in California.

The Monarchs (35-5) captured their second Open Division state title in three years and their third overall with a 25-13, 25-22, 25-18 sweep of Rocklin on Saturday night at Santiago Canyon College.

Getting 31 kills from USC signee Layli Ostavar and 43 assists from Cal State Bakersfield-bound setter Sam Capinpin, Mater Dei closed out the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 2 winners with a 13-6 run in the third set.

Dan O’Dell’s squad won 20 of its last 21 matches — its only blemish being a four-set defeat to Sierra Canyon in the CIF-SS final.

Earlier Saturday, Cypress made the most of its first state finals appearance by sweeping Clovis West, 25-20, 25-23, 25-22, to win the Division II title under head coach Alex Griffiths.

Isabella Faro had 14 kills and fellow senior Hannah Schoffstall dished out 30 for the Centurions (25-10), who swept Santa Ana Foothill on November 6 in the CIF-SS Division 3 final.

It was redemption for Cypress, which had lost to Bishop Diego in the CIF-SS Division 3 semifinals and to Long Beach Poly in the first round of the Division II regionals last season.

On Friday, Harvard-Westlake earned its sixth title and first since 2021 with a 25-22, 25-14, 25-17 victory over Roseville Woodcreek in the Division I championship match.

Kylie Parker pounded 14 kills and dug 15 balls, Sophia Cotter had 11 kills and senior middle blockers Lauryn Lewis (committed to Penn) and Maya Stillwell (committed to Northwestern) controlled the net for the Wolverines (28-8), who finished third in the Mission League behind Sierra Canyon and Marymount and lost to Mater Dei in the Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinals, a remarkable turnaround for a team that had a losing record and missed the playoffs last year.

Coach Morgan Wijay returned to the program in January after a decade-long stint at Bishop Alemany, where she guided the Warriors to back-to-back CIF titles in 2021 and 2022. Wijay was on Adam Black’s staff back in 2007 when Harvard-Westlake won the Division III state title.

The Mater Dei High girls’ volleyball team had a lot to play for after coming within one victory of a third consecutive Southern Section title.

The Monarchs quickly turned the page and set their sights on the state championship. Now they find themselves one win away from attaining that after upsetting No. 1 Sierra Canyon, 20-25, 25-16, 25-22, 25-16, in the Southern California Regional Open Division final Tuesday night in Chatsworth.

Outside hitter Westley Matavao led the way with 18 kills and afterward gave a shout-out to her cousin on the opposite side of the net, Missouri-bound setter and fellow junior Lucky Fasavalu.

“We’re family, I love her as a person, she comes to play every match and she knows how to run an offense,” said Matavao, an early commit to UCLA. “We wanted this so much after losing to them last time and we came out swinging tonight.”

A thunderous kill by Addison Coady ended the third set and Mater Dei opened a seven-point lead early in the fourth to ensure there would be no comeback by the home side.

“We played with so much confidence and our energy showed up,” Matavao added. “We have specific serving targets so we focused on that and were in great position on our blocking.”

Mater Dei will try to capture its third state Open Division title at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Santiago Canyon College in Orange, where the Monarchs (34-5) face Northern California champion Rocklin (37-4), which upset top-seeded Archbishop Mitty in five sets Tuesday.

Layli Ostovar had 14 and 21 digs, Emma Kingston had 10 kills and six blocks, Lizzy Robinson had 19 digs, Kalea Lee had 24 assists, Sam Capinpin had 17 assists and Jael Smith had six blocks.

The Monarchs not only avenged their loss in the section final, they snapped Sierra Canyon’s 19-match winning streak and handed the Trailblazers (41-4) their only defeat in California all season.

Mater Dei won its first nine head-to-head meetings with Sierra Canyon before losing in four sets in the Southern Section Division 1 final Nov. 8 at Cerritos College. It was the Trailblazers’ fourth section title and halted Mater Dei’s bid for a three-peat under head coach Dan O’Dell.

Mater Dei won its first state Open Division title in 2018 and its second in 2023.

No. 1 Nebraska displayed every skill that’s made it a powerhouse program — the offense attacked every part of the court, defense never gave up on the ball and the fans showed up at the Galen Center.

In front of a sellout crowd of 9,072, USC’s nine-match win streak came to an end with a straight-set loss to Nebraska (26-0, 16-0 Big Ten).

“I just felt like the game was a little too fast for us today,” USC coach Brad Keller said. “I thought it was slow for them and fast for us.”

The No. 17 Trojans never led and were limited to a 20% point scoring percentage throughout the match. USC (20-6, 11-5) led in attacks, but its 16 errors were costly during the 25-13, 25-16, 25-20 loss to the Cornhuskers.

USC’s Adonia Faumuina taps the ball over the net against Nebraska at the Galen Center on Sunday.

(Kim Ly / USC Athletics)

“Nebraska is the real deal,” Keller said. “They are really, really good and they showed that today from point one to the very end. They’re hitting .400 and they held us down to .156, that kind of shows you a lot of where they were.

“Go Big Red Nation deserves credit and they deserve the fact that they travel and they support their team.”

USC outside hitters London Wijay, with 10 kills, and Adonia Faumuina, with nine kills, kept the Trojans in as much as possible throughout the three sets. After a break, the Trojans came out with some extra gusto to make things a little interesting for the Cornhuskers.

“We literally had nothing to lose,” Faumuina said.

During the match, Nebraska made 10 errors, with five spread across the first two sets. The Huskers moved the ball quickly around the court and if they made a mistake, the team quickly adjusted. In the third set, a ball bounced in the air close to the floor seats. Nebraska saved the ball and it later led to a kill by Virginia Adrian that put the Huskers three points from closing out the game.

Nebraska kept USC guessing, while exploiting the weaker USC back court and capitalizing on attacking errors. Throughout the match, they kept hitting the ball to the back, usually resulting in a point for them.

“There were some plays they made that I haven’t seen in a while and that was normal for them,” Keller said.

As the Trojans look ahead to their next match against Oregon on Wednesday, Keller doesn’t have a silver lining take-away from the loss.

“I love my team, I don’t care what their age is,” Keller said. “There needs to be a standard and we need to execute and if we don’t execute, we go back to the drawing board, we work on those things, we get better and we execute.”

Wijay said the loss exposed how much harder the Trojans must work to achieve their goals.

“I don’t want to brush off this loss,” Wijay said. “I think it’s good to use as fuel for the next game. It was a good test to see how far we are to get to that level. And I feel like the silver lining is to make sure that we’re all gonna be in the gym working even harder to make sure that we pursue the balls.”

“I think it made me more hungry to want to win,” Wijay added.

Sierra Canyon faced a familiar foe Saturday night in the Southern California Regional Open Division girls’ volleyball semifinals in Chatsworth.

The Trailblazers needed five match points to finally put away Mission League rival Marymount, 25-18, 19-25, 25-22, 25-23, and move within two wins of a state title.

It was the fifth meeting between the teams — the most in a season between two Southern Section schools from the same league since 2006 when Bay League rivals Redondo Union and Mira Costa also faced off five times. Sierra Canyon improved to 11-2 in its last 13 best-of-five set matches against Marymount — including the last seven in a row — though none of them have been easy.

Lucky Fasavalu serves an ace in Sierra Canyon’s four-set victory over Marymount in the Southern California Regional semifinals at Chatsworth on Nov. 15, 2025.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“It gets harder every time we play them because they know our tendencies,” said Missouri-bound setter Lucky Fasavalu, who dished out 44 assists. “It makes us better, but it makes them better too.”

Hanna McGinest had 15 kills, the last of which ended the match. McKenna McIntosh had 13 kills and 15 digs, Kendall Omoruyi had 13 kills and four blocks and Eva Jeffries added eight kills and eight digs for Sierra Canyon.

Washington commit Sammy Destler led Marymount with 20 kills, seven of them in the second set. Elle Vandeweghe had 14 kills, Katelyn Oerlemans added 13 and Olivia Penske had 41 assists for the Sailors, who pushed the Trailblazers to five sets in the section semifinals.

Top-seeded Sierra Canyon (41-3), which has already set the program single-season record for wins in a season, improved to 4-1 this fall against the fifth-seeded Sailors (38-7) and has not lost a match in California (its three losses came in out-of-state tournaments).

Having defeated Mater Dei for the first time in its history to win the Southern Section Division 1 title, Sierra Canyon will try to make it two in a row against the visiting Monarchs on Tuesday night in the regional final. Sierra Canyon’s four-set victory on Nov. 8 at Cerritos College marked its first in 10 tries against Mater Dei, which beat Torrey Pines in four sets in Saturday’s other semifinal.

“They’re both incredible teams,” Fasavalu said, referring to Marymount and Mater Dei. “Marymount is scrappy, has weapons everywhere and has two great middles. Mater Dei’s pins are explosive and they have great game I.Q. Both are full of seniors so they really want to win — but so do we!”

Asked if she is happy to be playing Mater Dei, Fasavalu admitted she was since her cousin Westley Matavao plays for the No. 2-seeded Monarchs (33-5).

“We know how good they are but we can play great volleyball,” Fasavalu said. “I’ve got great options as a setter. McKenna and Kendall demand the ball a lot and it’s my job to read the other side of the net and see where mismatches are.”

The intensity is always high when Palisades and Venice meet on the volleyball court. This time, however, there was more than just neighborhood bragging rights at stake.

In the fifth meeting this season between the Western League rivals, the second-seeded Dolphins brought their ‘A’ game and won the City Section Open Division girls’ championship with a 25-23, 25-18, 25-18 victory Friday night at Southwest College.

It was the record 31st section crown for Palisades (35-7), which had won its last title (all but two of which have been in the top division) four years ago when the 2020 fall season was delayed until the following spring because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Tulah Block’s seventh and final kill on match point sent her teammates pouring off the bench to hug each other.

“Going up for that kill I just knew I had to do it for the team,” Block said. “I’m so proud of the whole team especially with everything we went through and are still going through after the fire and not having a gym. We even had to go the beach to practice one day.”

The West Valley League has dominated girls’ volleyball over the last decade, but Palisades and Venice each vanquished two West Valley League opponents to reach the final. The Dolphins ousted Granada Hills and defending Open champion Taft while the top-seeded Gondoliers eliminated Chatsworth and El Camino Real.

Venice (32-11) won Division II in 2012, Division I in 2016 and the Open Division in 2021. The last time a West Valley League school failed to reach the Open Division final was 2019 when Eagle Rock beat Palisades in four sets.

Venice was swept in the team’s first league meeting on Aug. 28 but rebounded to take the rematch in five sets on Sept. 25 and ultimately took first place because of the Dolphins’ surprising five-set loss to University. The teams also met twice in tournaments, Venice winning both times in a best-of-three sets format.

“Our slogan all year was ’no gym, no problem,” Palisades senior libero Lucy Neilson said. “Today we came with a ‘leave it all out there’ mentality.”

Palisades rallied from a 19-16 deficit to win the first set on a kill by Block that Venice’s Samantha Lortie dove for in desperation but could not quite dig. Venice’s last stand came in the third set when it built a 13-7 lead but Palisades answered with a 14-point run on the serving of Phoebe Messiha.

Lortie, who teamed with Savannah Rozell to win the City pairs tournament on April 29 in Santa Monica and three days later led the Gondoliers to their first beach volleyball title, traded kills with Palisades’ Anabelle Redaelli, who finished with a match-high 13. Lortie had 11 and Gaia Adeseun-Williams added eight for the Gondoliers.

“Winning it this season is special given the obvious circumstances and it had to be against Venice,” Neilson added. “It’s important for our program because we hadn’t won it in a few years and that’s our goal every year.”

In the preceding Division V final, fifth-seeded Legacy swept No. 11 Sotomayor, 25-20, 25-18, 25-12. Both teams were seeking their first City title. Legacy improved to 10-15 while Sotomayor dropped to 12-12.

“We’re here because we pushed for it,” Tigers libero Yahaira Ramirez said. “Not all teams are going to have a 100 percent win streak. I love my position. I love to stand out. I save my team a lot of points.”