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With her signature stiff arm and red lip, Ilona Maher rules Olympic rugby and TikTok

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With her signature stiff arm and red lip, Ilona Maher rules Olympic rugby and TikTok

Ilona Maher celebrates the U.S. women’s rugby sevens win over Australia for the bronze medal in Paris on Tuesday.

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NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. For more of our coverage from the games head to our latest updates.

Ilona Maher is hard to miss.

The U.S. women’s rugby sevens center has emerged as one of the stars of this year’s Olympic Games, whether she’s charging down the pitch in red lipstick or goofing around on TikTok with her teammates.

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Maher helped Team USA win its first-ever medal in women’s rugby on Tuesday, defeating Australia in nail-biting fashion. Afterward, she spoke emotionally about the importance of growing the sport.

“We wanted to do this to show what rugby could be in America,” Maher said. “We say in rugby a lot that we want to ‘pass the jersey.’ … I think today really made the jersey better so that other young girls can grow up wanting to play rugby, wanting to be professionals, wanting to live the life we live where we travel the world and go to the Olympics.”

The 27-year-old Vermont native has been an athlete to watch — both on and off the playing field — since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, when she charmed the world with her honest review of the controversial cardboard beds, blunt takes on the Olympic Village social scene and other behind-the-scenes looks at the highly-restricted pandemic-era Games.

Maher’s social media star has only grown in the years since. She’s used the platform to bring attention to women’s rugby and spread messages of body positivity, including popularizing the hashtag #beastbeautybrains (her sister Olivia, by the way, is the creator of #girldinner).

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Just days into the Paris Olympics, Maher officially became the most-followed rugby player on Instagram with 1.4 million followers, a number that’s since grown to 2 million. She has 1.9 million and counting on TikTok.

So far, Maher has fangirled over Snoop Dogg, converted retired NFL player Jason Kelce into a U.S. women’s rugby hype man (a la Flavor Flav), tested the beds again and posted about looking for love at the Olympic Villa in a spoof of the reality show Love Island.

She’s also clapped back at negative comments about her weight and muscular stature (“every day I get called masculine, I get called manly” she said in one 2022 TikTok).

In a now-viral video response posted earlier this month, 5-foot, 10-inch Maher, who holds a degree in nursing, pointed out that BMI is a flawed measurement, especially for athletes.

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“I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight,” she concluded. “But alas. I’m going to the Olympics, and you’re not.”

In another much-liked TikTok, posted from Paris, Maher encouraged people to take note of all the different body types of the athletes competing in the Olympics.

“All body types are worthy, from the smallest gymnast to the tallest volleyball player or rugby player to a shotputter and a sprinter,” she said. “All body types are beautiful and can do amazing things, so truly see yourself in these athletes and know that you can do it too.”

Maher’s videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of likes and admiring comments from grateful viewers who credit her with getting them interested in the Olympics and women’s rugby.

After Tuesday’s win, Maher acknowledged that social media does come with added pressure to perform, something she said she talked about with her sports psychologist “at least every day” leading up to the Olympics.

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“I want to show people that I can be good at social media and I can do a lot of social media but also be a very good rugby player,” she said. “And that was important to me.”

The rise of Ilona Maher

Ilona Maher, in an Team USA Olympics shirt, poses for a portrait against a red and blue background.

Ilona Maher, pictured in an April 2024 portrait, has dominated the Paris Olympics on the pitch and on social media.

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Maher was an all-around athlete at Burlington High School, where she played hockey, basketball and softball. While her dad was a college rugby player, she didn’t check out the sport until age 17.

“My senior year I just wasn’t really that into softball anymore, so I looked at some things and saw that there was a local rugby team at South Burlington High School,” Maher told Vermont Public in 2018. “My dad’s played rugby for a while … and so I tried rugby and found I was pretty good at it, and it just kind of started to roll from there.”

Maher played rugby at Norwich University for a year before being recruited to Quinnipiac University. There, she won three championships in the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) and was named to NIRA’s All-American team all three years.

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In 2017, she received the MA Sorensen Award, which is given to the nation’s top collegiate women’s rugby player.

Maher, who also holds a master’s degree in business administration and management from DeVry University, was selected for the U.S. national rugby team before she graduated from college.

She made her debut at a Women’s SVNS tournament in Paris in 2018 and has competed in the Rugby World Cups in 2018 and 2022 — as well as, of course, two Olympics. Rugby sevens, which made its Olympic debut in 2016, is made up of seven players playing two seven-minute halves, as opposed to 15 players playing 40-minute halves.

Maher has turned heads for her aggressive playing style, including her high-speed runs and stiff arm. She’s recently been compared to Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry, who in turn shouted her out.

One thing that makes Maher even more distinct on the pitch is her signature red lip. She told “CBS Mornings” this week that she wears lipstick while playing to “stick it to the man.”

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“It doesn’t take away from your athletic ability if you wear makeup,” Maher said, adding, “I feel that I can be a beast and can play this very physical, aggressive sport while also keeping my femininity while I do it.”

The rise of U.S. women’s rugby

Team members for the United States — including Maher in the top and New Zealand pose at the medal presentation ceremony for the Rugby Sevens in Saint-Denis, France on Tuesday.

Team members for the United States — including Maher in the center of the top row — and New Zealand pose at the medal presentation ceremony for the Rugby Sevens in Saint-Denis, France on Tuesday.

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Maher has spoken about using TikTok to have fun and promote her sport — both to potential viewers and future players.

“I think it just doesn’t get the attention it deserves,” she told Vermont Public in 2021, adding that she and her team are working to get more girls interested in rugby.

“Because we have some of the best athletes in the U.S.,” Maher added. “And if we could get people really into rugby, I think we could be a powerhouse in the world.”

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Women’s rugby has grown increasingly popular worldwide and in the U.S., with the consultancy Elite Rugby Scholars saying in 2022 that participation levels had doubled “each year for the past five years.”

The USA Rugby Women’s Premier League, founded in 2009, is the top annual American women’s rugby union competition (as opposed to rugby sevens, which is what Maher plays) — but the players are not paid.

The sport took its first step towards professionalism in April of this year when Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) announced it would hold its inaugural season in 2025.

WER is planning between six and eight teams with roughly 30 players each and bankrolled by private investment, according to ESPN. On Wednesday, it announced its first three cities: Boston, Chicago and Denver.

And American women’s rugby dominance at the Olympics seems poised to draw even more support — financial and otherwise — for the sport at home.

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Just after Team USA’s win on Tuesday, American businesswoman Michele Kang — who owns the Washington Spirit as well as soccer clubs in France and England — announced she would donate $4 million to the U.S. Women’s Rugby Sevens team over the next four years, to help “grow the support and provide improved resources to its players and coaching staff” ahead of the 2028 summer Olympics.

In a statement, Kang described 2024 as a “banner year for women’s sports with record-breaking attendance and viewership,” including rugby. She highlighted a few key players, Maher among them.

“This Eagles team, led by players like Ilona Maher and co-captains Lauren Doyle and Naya Tapper, has captivated millions of new fans, bringing unprecedented attention to the sport,” she wrote. “As corporate sponsors and broadcast networks increasingly see the value and enthusiasm for women’s sports, now is the moment to unlock the full potential of these incredible female athletes and inspire generations to come.”

NPR’s Juana Summers contributed reporting from Paris.

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Video: Raising a Baby in Altadena’s Ashes

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Video: Raising a Baby in Altadena’s Ashes

“So, my daughter, Robin, was born Jan. 5, 2025.” “Hi, baby. That’s you.” “When I first saw her, I was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s here.’” “She was crying and immediately when she was up on my face, she stopped crying.” “I got the room with the view.” “But it wasn’t until way later, I saw a fire near the Pasadena Mountains.” “We’re watching the news on the TV, hoping that it’s just not going to reach our house.” “The Eaton fire has scorched over 13,000 acres.” “Sixteen people confirmed dead.” “More than 1,000 structures have been destroyed.” “And then that’s when we got the call. Liz’s mom crying, saying the house is on fire.” “Oh, please. No, Dios mio. Go back. Don’t go that way. It’s closed. Go, turn. Turn back.” “Our house is burning, Veli.” “Oh my God.” “It was just surreal. Like, I couldn’t believe it.” “There’s nothing left.” “Not only our house is gone, the neighbors’ houses are gone, her grandma’s house is gone. All you could see was ash.” “My family has lived in Altadena for about 40 years. It was so quiet. There’s no freeways. My grandmother was across the street from us. All our family would have Christmas there, Thanksgivings. She had her nopales in the back. She would always just go out and cut them down and make salads out of them. My grandmother is definitely the matriarch of our family. My parents, our house was across the street. And then me and Javi got married right after high school.” “My husband’s getting me a cookie.” “Me and Javi had talked a lot about having kids in the future. Finally, after 15 years of being married, we were in a good place. It was so exciting to find out that we were pregnant. We remodeled our whole house. We were really preparing. My grandmother and my mom, they were like, crying, and they were like, so excited.” “Liz!” “I had this vision for her, of how she would grow up, the experiences maybe she would have experiencing my grandmother’s house as it was. We wanted her to have her childhood here. But all of our preparation went out the window in the matter of a few hours.” “And we’re like, ‘What do we do?’ And then we get a phone call. And it was Liz’s uncle. He was like, ‘Hey, come to my house. We have a room ready for you.’” “In my more immediate family, nine people lost their homes, so it was about 13 people in the house at any given point for the first three months of the fire. It was a really hard time. We had to figure out insurance claim forms, finding a new place to live, the cost of rebuilding — will we be able to afford it? Oh my gosh, we must have looked at 10 rentals. The experience of motherhood that I was hoping to have was completely different. Survival mode is not how I wanted to start. “Hi, Robin.” “Robin — she was really stressed out. “She’s over it.” “Our stress was radiating towards Robin. I feel like she could feel that.” “There was just no place to lay her safely, where she could be free and not stepped over by a dog or something. So she was having issues gaining strength. So she did have to go to physical therapy for a few months to be able to lift her head.” “One more, one more — you can do it.” “All the stress and the pain, it was just too much.” “Then Liz got really sick.” “I didn’t stop throwing up for five hours. Javi immediately took me to the E.R. They did a bunch of tests and figured out it was vertigo, likely stress-induced. It felt like, OK, something has to slow down. I can’t just handle all of it myself all the time. My mom is so amazing and my grandmother, they really took care of us in a really wonderful way. So — yeah.” “We’ve been able to get back on our feet. “Good high-five.” “I think it has changed how I parent. I’m trying to shed what I thought it would be like, and be open to what’s new. Robin is doing much better. She’s like standing now and trying to talk. She says like five words already. Even if it’s not exactly home for Robin, I wanted to have those smells around. You walk in and it smells like home. For us, it’s definitely tamales. My grandmother’s house is not being rebuilt. I can tell she’s so sad. “Let me just grab a piece of this.” “So right now, where Javi’s standing is the front. One bedroom there, here in the middle, and Robin’s bedroom in the corner. My grandma will live with us versus across the street, which is silver linings. Yeah, and we did make space for a garden for her.” “What are you seeing? What do you think? What do you think, Robin?” “The roots of Altadena — even though they’re charred — they’re going to be stronger than before.” “How strong you can be when something like this happens, I think is something that’s really important for her to take on. And that I hope Altadena also takes on.”

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New video shows fatal Minnesota ICE shooting from officer’s perspective

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New video shows fatal Minnesota ICE shooting from officer’s perspective

People participate in a protest and noise demonstration calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement operations in the city, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Minneapolis.

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MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota prosecutor on Friday called on the public to share with investigators any recordings and evidence connected to the fatal shooting of Renee Good as a new video emerged showing the final moments of her encounter with an immigration officer.

The Minneapolis killing and a separate shooting in Portland, Oregon, a day later by the Border Patrol have set off protests in multiple cities and denunciations of immigration enforcement tactics by the U.S. government. The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents.

The reaction to the shooting has largely been focused on witness cellphone video of the encounter. A new, 47-second video that was published online by a Minnesota-based conservative news site, Alpha News, and later reposted on social media by the Department of Homeland Security shows the shooting from the perspective of ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who fired the shots.

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This image from video made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross via Alpha News shows Renee Good in her vehicle in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.

This image from video made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross via Alpha News shows Renee Good in her vehicle in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.

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Sirens blaring in the background, he approaches and circles Good’s vehicle in the middle of the road while apparently filming on his cellphone. At the same time, Good’s wife also was recording the encounter and can be seen walking around the vehicle and approaching the officer. A series of exchanges occurred:

“That’s fine, I’m not mad at you,” Good says as the officer passes by her door. She has one hand on the steering wheel and the other outside the open driver side window.

“U.S. citizen, former f—ing veteran,” says her wife, standing outside the passenger side of the SUV holding up her phone. “You wanna come at us, you wanna come at us, I say go get yourself some lunch big boy.”

Other officers are approaching the driver’s side of the car at about the same time and one says: “Get out of the car, get out of the f—ing car.” Ross is now at the front driver side of the vehicle. Good reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel toward the passenger side as she drives ahead and Ross opens fire.

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The camera becomes unsteady and points toward the sky and then returns to the street view showing Good’s SUV careening away.

“F—ing b—,” someone at the scene says.

A crashing sound is heard as Good’s vehicle smashes into others parked on the street.

Federal agencies have encouraged officers to document encounters in which people may attempt to interfere with enforcement actions, but policing experts have cautioned that recording on a handheld device can complicate already volatile situations by occupying an officer’s hands and narrowing focus at moments when rapid decision-making is required.

Under an ICE policy directive, officers and agents are expected to activate body-worn cameras at the start of enforcement activities and to record throughout interactions, and footage must be kept for review in serious incidents such as deaths or use-of-force cases. The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to questions about whether the officer who opened fire or any of the others who were on the scene were wearing body cameras.

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Homeland Security says video shows self-defense

Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in posts on X that the new video backs their contention that the officer fired in self-defense.

“Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn’t hit by a car, wasn’t being harassed, and murdered an innocent woman,” Vance said. “The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self defense.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has said any self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Policing experts said the video didn’t change their thoughts on the use-of-force but did raise additional questions about the officer’s training.

“Now that we can see he’s holding a gun in one hand and a cellphone in the other filming, I want to see the officer training that permits that,” said Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina.

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The video demonstrates that the officers didn’t perceive Good to be a threat, said John P. Gross, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who has written extensively about officers shooting at moving vehicles.

“If you are an officer who views this woman as a threat, you don’t have one hand on a cellphone. You don’t walk around this supposed weapon, casually filming,” Gross said.

Ross, 43, is an Iraq War veteran who has served in the Border Patrol and ICE for nearly two decades. He was injured last year when he was dragged by a driver fleeing an immigration arrest.

Attempts to reach Ross at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Prosecutor asks for video and evidence

Meanwhile, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration’s decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Good’s killing.

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She also said the officer who shot Good in the head does not have complete legal immunity, as Vance declared.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” Moriarty said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn’t sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

Good’s wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

“On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Becca Good said.

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“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote.

Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.

Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.

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The reaction to Good’s shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution and offering an online option through Feb. 12.

On Friday, protesters were outside a federal facility serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in Minneapolis and St. Paul. That evening, hundreds protested and marched outside two hotels in downtown Minneapolis where immigration enforcement agents were supposed to be staying. Some people were seen breaking or spray painting windows and state law enforcement officers wearing helmets and holding batons ordered the remaining group of fewer than 100 people to leave late Friday.

Shooting in Portland

The Portland shooting happened outside a hospital Thursday. A federal border officer shot and wounded a man and woman in a vehicle, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras. Police said they were in stable condition Friday after surgery, with DHS saying Nico Moncada was taken into FBI custody

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DHS defended the actions of its officers in Portland, saying the shooting occurred after the driver with alleged gang ties tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit them. It said no officers were injured.

Portland Police Chief Bob Day confirmed that the two people shot had “some nexus” to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Day said they came to the attention of police during an investigation of a July shooting believed to have been carried out by gang members, but they were not identified as suspects.

The chief said any gang affiliation did not necessarily justify the shooting by U.S. Border Patrol. The Oregon Department of Justice said it would investigate.

On Friday evening, hundreds of protesters marched to the ICE building in Portland.

The biggest crackdown yet

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

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The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good’s death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since President Donald Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis. More protests are planned for this weekend, according to Indivisible, a group formed to resist the Trump administration.

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Trump administration can’t block child care, other program money for 5 states: Judge

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Trump administration can’t block child care, other program money for 5 states: Judge

A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration cannot block federal money for child care subsidies and other programs aimed at supporting needy children and their families from flowing to five Democratic-led states for now.

The states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York argued that a policy announced Tuesday to freeze funds for three grant programs is having an immediate impact on them and creating “operational chaos.” In court filings and a hearing earlier Friday, the states contended that the government did not have a legal reason for holding back the money from those states.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it was pausing the funding because it had “reason to believe” the states were granting benefits to people in the country illegally, though it did not provide evidence or explain why it was targeting those states and not others.

The programs are the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for children from low-income families; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant, a smaller fund that provides money for a variety of programs.

The five states say they receive a total of more than $10 billion a year from the programs.

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U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, did not rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but he said the five states had met a legal threshold “to protect the status quo” for at least 14 days while arguments are made in court.

The government had requested reams of data from the five states, including the names and Social Security numbers of everyone who received benefits from some of the programs since 2022.

The states argue that the effort is unconstitutional and is intended to go after Trump’s political adversaries rather than to stamp out fraud in government programs — something the states say they already do.

Jessica Ranucci, a lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s office, said in the Friday hearing, which was conducted by telephone, that at least four of the states had already had money delayed after requesting it. She said that if the states can’t get child care funds, there will be immediate uncertainty for providers and families who rely on the programs.

A lawyer for the federal government, Kamika Shaw, said it was her understanding that the money had not stopped flowing to states.

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