Women's basketball players at Columbia Bible College (CBC) in British Columbia, in Canada, have signed a letter responding to an opposing team that is refusing to play games against CBC over alleged abuse against a transgender player. 

Vancouver Island University (VIU) announced on Thursday it will not play its two games against CBC this weekend after an incident in the last meeting between the two teams in October, alleging that a CBC coach treated the trans athlete in a way that violated the Coach's Code of Ethics. VIU has asked its conference, the Pacific Western Athletic Association (PACWEST), not to penalize its team for not playing the games due to the nature of the situation.

VIU's transgender player, Harriette Mackenzie, has made public statements alleging that CBC coaches and players behaved in an abusive manner. 

The letter by the CBC players, obtained by Fox News Digital, condemns VIU's team for "personal attacks," "defamatory comments" and even "comments that incite violence," against their coach. 

"Videos and letters posted by members of the VIU women’s basketball team over the past three months have directly violated multiple rules stated in Article 17.2 of the manual. Various posts have included 'personal attacks,' 'defamatory comments,' 'lack of respect towards the PACWEST,' and led to 'comments that incite to violence and/or hatred' directed at our coach," the letter read.

"Any and all allegations made by VIU players regarding our team and coach should have been directly communicated to PACWEST officials alone, they should not have been uploaded publicly to social media."

The letter even called the VIU players' statements "misinformation."

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"The attack on Coach Claggett’s character, and the character of our team, over the past three months has been based on misinformation and one side of a complicated scenario," it read. 

Mackenzie posted a video to the athlete's Instagram page on Oct. 30, alleging that Columbia Bible head coach Taylor Clagett "cornered one of our athletic staff and went on a tirade about how I shouldn’t be allowed to play."

Mackenzie said she was also deliberately fouled to the ground by a Columbia Bible player.

"I got two-hand chucked to the ground by No. 13 without a play on the ball in sight, then head coach Clagett can be seen applauding in support," the trans athlete said. 

Mackenzie helped lead the Mariners to the 2022-23 Canadian Colleges Athletic Association national championship. This season, the athlete is second in the PACWEST in scoring with 16.1 points per game and third in rebounds with 9.4 per game, as VIU is 11-1 in the conference. Mackenzie is also second in conference in shooting percentage at 49.7%.

"I believe all trans people should be included in sport. But it's especially infuriating to me, because I'm playing — and being forced to play — at a major biological disadvantage," Mackenzie said in the video. "I never went through a male puberty. I only went through a female puberty. And I don't have ovaries, I don't have testicles, so I have zero way of making any testosterone."

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The CBC players' letters also claims that the VIU team has violated standard procedure for canceling games, and the PACWEST has not held VIU to the proper standards. 

"In the past when a team has refused to participate and travel to a scheduled game they have received 0 points in the classification. By postponing the games this weekend PACWEST has contradicted the standard operating procedure. There has been no clear rationale provided to our team to justify this departure from normal procedures," the letter read.

"Additionally, Article 13 section 9.1.1 states that if a team cannot make a scheduled game the coach or athletic director is to contact the opposing director of athletics to ‘indicate the reason for their inability to meet their scheduled commitment.' To our knowledge, this requirement was not met."

The CBC players, who have stayed silent to this point, believe they no longer can. 

"Up until this point we have stayed silent. We have shown respect to the PacWest and VIU over the past few months by staying off social media and voicing our concerns through official channels. The VIU women’s basketball team has not shared this same respect towards PacWest or CBC and has communicated primarily on social media," the letter read.

 "Their behaviour has been rewarded in how their refusal to play this weekend has been handled. We are writing this letter to ensure that our voices are heard in this conversation, and that the respect we have shown throughout this process is not mistaken for passivity."

Since June 2017, all places within Canada explicitly within the Canadian Human Rights Act, equal opportunity and/or anti-discrimination legislation prohibit discrimination against gender identity or gender identity expression. This law protects the inclusion of all trans athletes in women's and girls' sports. 

In the U.S., President-elect Trump has vowed to ban trans athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports. Trump has also repeatedly suggested that Canada join the U.S., potentially as the 51st state.

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The United States military offers an expedited path to US citizenship for lawful residents who commit to service. In 2024, while filming the US Marine Corps boot camp in Camp Pendleton, California, chief video correspondent Graham Flanagan followed one recruit taking advantage of this opportunity.

Twenty-four-year-old Ralph Dahilig immigrated to the US from the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although he holds a bachelor's degree in information systems, Dahilig struggled to find a job in the tech industry, which led him to pursue a career in the Marine Corps.

At 5 feet 4 inches tall, Dahilig is not what many might picture as the prototypical US Marine. He had to learn to think outside the box to make it to The Crucible, the 54-hour culminating event of the 13-week boot camp. All recruits must endure it before they receive the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor pendant, symbolizing their official transformation from recruit to US Marine.

Lenovo’s small yet powerful Legion Tab looks to be an Android tablet many have been waiting for, as it sold out in barely two days. One question about the device has been whether or not it supports stylus input, and we can confirm that the Lenovo Legion Tab does support at least one stylus option.

Leaks and rumors supported by multiple third-party manufactures make up the bulk of info out there about the new Switch.

Nintendo’s announcement of the Switch successor is imminent. Just how imminent is anyone’s guess with the company stating that it would reveal info on the console before the end of its fiscal year in March. Rumors regarding the new Switch have been circulating for more than a year, but with less than two months to go until the promised deadline, and in the absence of any real information from Nintendo itself, speculation about the console, its specs, physical profile, and more have reached a fever pitch. So before the official reveal, here’s everything we think we know about Nintendo’s next console.

The only concrete, Nintendo-confirmed piece of information we know about the new console is that it’ll be backwards compatible with the Switch. Everything else has come by way of leaks and info supplied by third-party manufacturers. Late last year, one such manufacturer, Dbrand, debuted its Killswitch carrying case meant for the Switch 2. According to Dbrand CEO Adam Ijaz, the Killswitch is based on the “actual dimensions” of the new console obtained from a “3D scan of the real hardware.” But in an interview with The Verge, he declined to say exactly how or where Dbrand obtained such information.

Image: Dbrand

If the Killswitch’s design is indeed derived from the real thing, the new console will be larger than the Switch OLED with an 8-inch screen, and feature a kickstand that will span the length of the console similar to the OLED model. That the new Switch will be larger than previous iterations is supported by leaks and info from other accessory manufacturers as well as the idea that the Joy-Con controllers will attach via magnet instead of sliding and snapping into place. The new controller design will also incorporate magnets in the joysticks to combat against the dreaded “Joy-Con drift” that plagues the Switch even now.

CES 2025 provided even more fodder for the rumor mill, with accessory manufacturer Genki showing off a 3D printed mock-up of the console on the show floor. In an interview with The Verge, Genki CEO Eddie Tsai went into detail about what he knows about the new Switch reaffirming rumors regarding its larger size, magnetic Joy-Con, and more.

While there’s a lot of speculation and potential evidence about what the new console will look like, there’s less circulating about what it can actually do. Beyond an alleged photo of the console’s motherboard, there hasn’t been much out there about the console’s hardware specifications. Because Nintendo has never made consoles at the bleeding edge (or, honestly, even the cutting one) of graphics or processing power, it’s hard to guess how well the console will perform or what additional features, like a microphone, it’ll have.

Though the console’s internals remain a mystery, we do know that it’ll be backwards compatible with Switch games. We can also reasonably guess at least one game that’ll be a launch title: Metroid Prime 4. Announced in 2017, and undergoing a change of studio and a development reboot two years later, Nintendo debuted gameplay footage for the first time last year and shared a soft launch window of 2025. When Twilight Princess launched in 2006, it debuted on both the GameCube and served as a launch title for the Wii. Breath of the Wild was also cross-gen, debuting on the Wii U while launching with the Switch in 2017.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Knowing that the new Switch and Metroid Prime 4 both launch in 2025 and with Twilight Princess and BotW as examples, it’s speculated that the reason for Metroid 4’s long stint in development hell was, at least in part, because the game was being tooled for both the Switch and its successor. Also, you just can’t have a new Nintendo console without a Mario game. Super Mario Odyssey was a Switch launch title, and though there’s been other new releases like Super Mario Wonder, there hasn’t been a new, standalone (put down your pitchforks Bowser’s Fury fans) 3D Mario game since then. It’s all but assured one will be announced with the new Switch. The recently announced Pokémon Legends: Z-A is also a good launch title candidate as Nintendo curiously worded the game’s debut trailer with “releasing simultaneously worldwide on Nintendo Switch in 2025.”

For all the rumors and reasonable guesses supported by increasingly convincing evidence, it’s helpful to remember that at the end of the day, we’re still talking about Nintendo. The company has always tread a separate and unpredictable path from the other two major console manufacturers and that oddball strategy has mostly worked very well. Though the company is not immune to the same layoffs and delays (the Switch 2 was originally pegged for a 2024 release) plaguing its peers and indeed has its own manifold issues with how it treats and pays its employees and contractors, of the major publishers, it seems to be the one that is best navigating the current crisis ravaging the industry.

It is folly trying to predict what Nintendo will do, and that applies to its new console. All we can count on is that it’s coming soon, and when it arrives, it’ll be big.

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