"People get mad. It’s just a product of what I’ve seen," the Los Angeles Lakers legend said. "I’ve seen what greatness is, been there, played with them. I don’t see that all the time over there. So, you want me to give these mother----rs the same props you giving them? That s--- will never happen. You can call it hate if you want.
"Even with the word ‘hate,’ like these f-----g kids, they like to throw that word around. If you ain’t f-----g great and I’m great, how the f--- can I hate on you? That don’t make no f-----g sense. I’m in the f-----g building, and you not in the building, so how the f--- can I hate on you?"
O’Neal said he wants to see greatness on the court and lamented that "a lot of these mother---ers can’t play."
He pointed to Simmons, a three-time All-Star whose career has been marred by injuries. He went from averaging 14.3 points per game with the Philadelphia 76ers to averaging fewer than seven points per game with the Brooklyn Nets and now with the Clippers. All of that while he averaged around $35.4 million per year in salary and has earned more than $200 million in his career.
"Ben f---ing Simmons, that mother---er needs to be arrested. Jayson Tatum can play. He’s alright. I’m not going to bash him. But Ben Simmons needs to be f-----g arrested. ($250 million) for that bull---- Get the f--- out of my face. Robbing people, man. You can’t do that."
The NBA’s current product has found a lot of criticism over the last few years. With more teams taking 3-pointers and stars not playing the entirety of the 82-game schedule, fans responded by turning the game off.
Ratings were a hot topic of conversation earlier in the season.
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla even said he’d "rather watch something else."
The NBA playoffs are poised to change that with superstar talent in the running for a title, including the Lakers and LeBron James.
Democrats are celebrating a larger-than-expected victory in a high-profile and historically expensive election in battleground Wisconsin, in the first statewide ballot box contest since President Donald Trump's return to power in January.
And while the GOP came out on top in Tuesday's other marquee contests, comfortably holding control of two vacant congressional seats in twin special elections in red state Florida, Democrats are spotlighting that their candidates overperformed in overwhelmingly Republican districts.
Democrats are portraying last week's contests as early referendums on Trump's sweeping and controversial moves during the opening months of his second tour of duty in the White House, including the massive federal government downsizing being steered by billionaire White House special adviser Elon Musk.
And Democrats argue that the results in Wisconsin and Florida are a sign of things to come in next year's midterm elections.
"These races proved what we’ve seen over and over again this year: people are already fed up with Trump’s chaos agenda and they’re voting for a change," Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin emphasized in an email to supporters.
But Republican National Committee chair Mike Whatley, pointing to the Florida victories, countered that "the American people sent a clear message…they want elected officials who will advance President Trump’s America First agenda, and their votes can’t be bought by national Democrats."
In Wisconsin, liberal-leaning Judge Susan Crawford topped conservative-leaning Judge Brad Schimel by roughly 10 percentage points, to preserve the liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is likely to rule going forward on crucial issues like congressional redistricting, voting rights, labor rights and abortion.
With a massive infusion of money from Democratic-aligned and Republican-aligned groups from outside Wisconsin, which turned the technically nonpartisan race into the most expensive judicial election in the nation's history, the contest partially transformed into a proxy battle over Trump as well as Musk, who personally inserted himself into the election.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, who has taken a buzz saw to the federal government workforce as he steers Trump's recently created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), dished out roughly $20 million in the Wisconsin race through aligned groups in support of Schimel.
And Musk, in a controversial move, handed out $1 million checks at a rally in Green Bay last Sunday to two Wisconsin voters who had already cast ballots in the contest and had signed a petition to stop "activist judges."
"I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world, for justice in Wisconsin. And we won," Crawford said in her election night victory speech.
The results in Wisconsin will likely give the Democrats a jolt, and validate their efforts to target Musk.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, argued that Wisconsin voters "sent a decisive message to Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and DOGE by rejecting an extreme Republican for their Supreme Court: our democracy is not for sale."
And the DNC, looking ahead to next year's bigger contests in the 2026 midterm elections, called the showdown in Wisconsin a "bellwether race."
But veteran Republican strategist Matt Gorman noted that two years ago, when the conservatives lost their majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the liberal-leaning candidate won by 11 points.
Pointing to this week's 10-point margin, with Trump in the White House, Gorman asked"this is what Democrats are jumping up and down over?"
In Florida, the double-digit victories by the Republican candidates will give the GOP a little bit of breathing room in the House of Representatives, where the party is holding onto a very fragile majority as it aims to pass Trump's agenda.
But the Democratic candidates in the two special congressional elections vastly outraised their Republican counterparts – a sign that the party's base is angry and energized – which forced GOP-aligned outside groups to pour money and resources into the races during the final stretch. And the Democratic candidates ended up losing by 15 and 14 points in districts that Trump carried by 37 and 30 points in last November's presidential election.
Democrats quickly spotlighted how the party "overperformed" in Florida. And the House Majority PAC, the top super PAC supporting House Democrats, touted that the results showed "that the political headwinds are firmly at our backs heading into 2026."
But Mike Marinella, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, argued that "Democrats just lit over $20,000,000 on fire in a doomed-to-fail effort to make two deep-red Florida districts competitive – and got blown out of the water in the most embarrassing way."
The elections in Wisconsin and Florida were held on the eve of Trump's blockbuster tariff announcement, sparking a trade war with the nation's top trading partners and triggering a massive sell-off in the financial markets. The latest move by the president could also set the stage for an even bigger ballot box backlash next year.
But Democrats have a serious brand issue right now.
The party's favorable rating sank to all-time lows in separate national polls conducted last month by CNN and NBC News. Those numbers followed a record low for Democrats in a Quinnipiac University survey in the field in February.
Additionally, the latest Fox News National poll indicated that congressional Democrats' approval rating is at 30%, near an all-time low. And Democratic activists are irate over their party's inability to blunt Trump's agenda.
And when it comes to normally low-turnout off-year elections and special elections, the party in power – which in the nation's capital is clearly the Republicans – often faces political headwinds.
"We'll get up to fight another day. But this wasn't our day," Schimel said in his concession speech.
And Wisconsin GOP chair Brian Schimming noted that "coming off a successful November, we knew the April elections would be challenging."
DNC chair Martin is touting that "Democrats have won or over-performed in nearly every special election race this year, including this week’s."
But Republicans note that Democrats enjoyed a slew of special election victories in 2023 and 2024 before suffering serious setbacks in last November's elections.
"Special elections are special for a reason, and not always useful canaries in the coal mines for what lies ahead," veteran Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News Digital. "While they can be used as a barometer for energy, they are also a reflection of the individual candidates whose names are on the ballots."
And Gorman emphasized that special elections "are not predictive."
Reed argued that "the bigger challenge for the Democrats looking ahead is the lack of a vision or governing agenda beyond reflexive and blanket opposition to the White House and their continued positioning way outside the mainstream on a slew of commonsense issues."
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will announce Sunday that he understands the rationale behind President Donald Trump’s tariffs and that the West is entering a new economic era.
"The world has changed, globalization is over and we are now in a new era," the prime minister’s office said in a statement to the Sunday Times. "We’ve got to demonstrate that our approach, a more active Labour government, a more reformist government, can provide the answers for people in every part of this country."
The statement comes after Trump announced new tariffs on dozens of countries around the world on Wednesday, including a 10% levy on goods from the U.K.
While Starmer will still argue that tariffs are wrong, according to the Sunday Times report, the prime minister will also admit that he understands the rationale behind Trump’s move and why such policies have become increasingly popular with voters.
"Trump has done something that we don’t agree with, but there’s a reason why people are behind him on this," the prime minister’s office said in the statement.
Starmer is expected to emphasize the failures of free trade and mass migration specifically during the address on Sunday, the report said, arguing that it has failed millions of voters.
Meanwhile, the report noted that Trump ally Elon Musk seemingly publicly broke with the president during a video interview for an event in Italy Saturday, saying he hopes, eventually, for a "zero-tariff" solution between the U.S. and Europe one day.
"At the end of the day, I hope it’s agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America," he said.
Musk also called for there to eventually be more "freedom" of movement between the two continents, an apparent break from Trump’s hard line on immigration.
"That’s what I hope occurs, and also more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America if they wish," Musk said. "If they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view. So that has certainly been my advice to the president."
The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
The author (not pictured) plans to track her daughter on Life360 when she goes to college.
Tim Robberts/Getty Images
My daughter is going away to college this fall, and my anxiety is already creeping in.
I've used Life360 to track my kids ever since they started driving.
I have no intention of removing my daughter from Life360 once she heads off to college.
My daughter is a high school senior and was recently accepted to her dream college. As we celebrate her huge accomplishment and start planning for this exciting change, part of me is more than a little anxious about my first child leaving home.
Don't get me wrong — I fully trust my daughter. She is the proverbial "good kid" and has given us no reason to worry over the years. Still, the world outside her exemplary behavior and our well-intentioned parenting is still a dangerous place.
That's why my daughter will stay on our family's Life360 account for her freshman year and possibly beyond. That's nonnegotiable.
I understand my decision is controversial
For the uninitiated, Life360 is a location-sharing app where you can track your family member's movements. I became aware of its existence as my kids hit their teen years; I heard about other parents using it. I decided to track my kids through high school, especially when they started driving — and have no plans to stop.
To be clear, I don't stalk my teenagers. I don't obsessively check the notifications when they arrive in a new location. I don't ask a million questions about their plans. I don't punish them if they travel a certain distance or go somewhere without telling me.
Really, it's just a gut check — a way to keep me from worrying if they're running late or not replying to texts or phone calls. If I can at least see where they are, that their phone still has battery, and that there are no unsafe driving alerts, then I know they're simply living their lives, and I can go back to living mine.
I don't want to lose that peace of mind just because my daughter is going to college.
I've mentioned my plan to other college moms, and some of them raised their eyebrows. I understand that to some people, this may seem like a breach of privacy and, possibly, a bit of a helicopter mom move. To me, it's a practical use of a tool at my disposal that may help me sleep easier when half my heart is living in a dorm room 150 miles away.
I'm mostly open to changing my mind
Right now, my plan to track my daughter at college is nonnegotiable.
But as an experienced mom, I know better than to speak in absolutes. My list of "I nevers" that I've gone back on over the years is about a mile long. When raising kids, there is no rule book, and we need to be prepared to make adjustments.
After all, when my kids first started learning to drive, I couldn't fathom them going places without me, and now, they drive everywhere on their own.
Maybe several months of safe and uneventful college life will convince me that it's time to cut the digital cord. Maybe I will feel the need to have her location available for the rest of her college years. I am keeping the door open for either possibility.
For now, my daughter is fine with my tracking
Thankfully, my daughter isn't asking to be removed and doesn't seem bothered.
In fact, she's been known to check on me when I'm on a trip without her or merely going to Sephora without inviting her along. I consider our relationship to be quite healthy, and she knows the app provides me with some mental breathing room, so she hasn't asked me to stop.
If she did, we would have a conversation, and I would hear her out. But tracking her for at least the first few months at college would be a requirement.
Eventually, I'm sure it will become clear to us both that it's time to move on from this phase, but for the immediate future, the app stays.
Foldables have improved drastically since their full debut in 2019, but Samsung has been stagnating on progress for quite a while now. That’s why I can’t explain why I still enjoy the Galaxy Z Fold 6 so much, especially after having spent a lot of time with some of the best foldables the market has to offer.
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