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Nevada cancels volleyball match with San Jose State after clashing with own players over transgender controversy

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Nevada cancels volleyball match with San Jose State after clashing with own players over transgender controversy


The University of Nevada, Reno officially announced on Friday that its women’s volleyball team will forfeit its game against San Jose State on Saturday.

Nevada is the fifth team to forfeit its match against San Jose State amid an ongoing national controversy over a transgender player, Blaire Fleming, on the team and another player engaged in a lawsuit over never being told that player was a biological male, according to the lawsuit.

Nevada cited not having enough players to compete in the match for forfeiting after its players expressed a desire and intention not to compete against San Jose State.

“Due to not having enough players to compete, the University of Nevada women’s volleyball team will not play its scheduled Mountain West Conference match at San José State on Saturday, Oct. 26. Per Mountain West Conference policy, the match will be recorded as a conference loss for Nevada,” Nevada announced in a statement early on Friday morning.

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San Jose State responded to the forfeit in a statement to Fox News Digital.

San Jose State volleyball player Brooke Fleming is in the middle of the controversy. FOX Sports

“Our athletes all comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and they are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations. We will continue to take measures to prioritize the health and safety of our students while they pursue their earned opportunities to compete,” the statement read.

Nevada players, including team captain Sia Liillii, spoke out against the notion of competing against a transgender player in the weeks leading up to the cancelation after voting to forfeit it on Oct. 14. The players even went so far as to schedule a press conference alongside OutKick contributor and women’s athlete activist Riley Gaines to go on at the same time as the game on Saturday.

“We were pretty upset after that statement came out from our university,” Liilii told Yahoo Sports. “It just hit us that we needed to talk about what we wanted to do as a group, make a decision and stand by it.”

However, Nevada would not officially forfeit the game until Friday morning, citing state law.

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Nevada’s Sia Liillii spoke out on the team’s decision. Sia Liillii/Instagram

“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” Liilii told the website. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.

“In all of our team meetings it just kept coming back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you’re born a biological male, you don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”

The Nevada state constitution was revised in 2022 when Nevada voted to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment, which added gender identity to the list of protections. Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman, a Democrat from North Las Vegas who co-sponsored the bill to get it on the ballot, said the law has helped transgender people maintain their identity.

Multiple schools have forfeited against San Jose State FOX Sports

“The university made the decision not to declare a forfeiture and move forward with hosting the match as scheduled based on several factors. As a public university, the university is legally prohibited by Section 24 of the Nevada Constitution and other laws and regulations to declare a forfeit for reasons related to gender identity or expression,” a Nevada spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital.

On Tuesday, both Nevada and San Jose State announced that the match would be moved from Nevada’s campus in Reno to San Jose State’s campus in the Bay Area in California, claiming the location change was “in the best interest of both programs and the well-being of the student-athletes, coaches, athletic staff and spectators.”

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San Jose State would have needed to be at the site of the match, however, in order to receive a forfeit victory if no Nevada players end up playing. By moving the site of the match to the San Jose State campus, then the Spartan players would not have to make the trip to Nevada in order to secure the forfeit victory. So, by making this change, San Jose State will get to claim a forfeited victory if no Nevada players choose to play, without leaving their home state.

Nevada’s volleyball team Sia Liillii/Instagram

Now that the match has been officially forfeited, no one will have to do any traveling.

Nevada joins Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming and Utah State, which all have officially forfeited their scheduled games against San Jose State.

San Jose State player Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit headed by OutKick host and former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines against the NCAA due to its policies on gender identity. Slusser joined this lawsuit because she claims that she has had to share a court, a locker room and even a room on overnight trips with her teammate Fleming without having ever been told that Fleming was a biological male.

Security concerns and threats against San Jose State players have made traveling for matches a high-risk endeavor for the lady Spartans. San Jose State previously confirmed to Fox News Digital that police protection had been assigned to the team, shortly after getting the first news of an opponent forfeiting, when Southern Utah announced that it would not play its match against the Spartans in September.

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“One of my teammates got a DM, basically saying that she, and then my team, needed to keep my distance from me on gameday against Colorado State, because it wasn’t going to be a good situation for me to be in and that my team needed to keep their distance,” Slusser told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “They needed to keep their distance from me during the game, because something was going to happen to me.

“This was the first physical threat when we could easily see that they wanted to physically harm one of us.”

San Jose State players huddle before an NCAA college volleyball match against Colorado State on Oct. 3, 2024. AP

In June, a survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago asked respondents to weigh in on whether transgender athletes of both sexes should be permitted to participate in sports leagues that correspond to their preferred gender identity instead of their biological sex.

Sixty-five percent answered that it should either be never or rarely allowed. When those polled were asked specifically about adult transgender female athletes competing on women’s sports teams, 69% opposed it.

The United Nations released study findings that say nearly 900 biological females have fallen short of the podium because they were beaten out by transgender athletes.

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The study, titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” said that more than 600 athletes did not medal in more than 400 competitions in 29 different sports, totaling over 890 medals, according to information obtained up to March 30.

“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report said.

Former President Donald Trump has gone so far as to advocate for a ban, in a recent town hall event on Fox News.

“We’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said of the issue. “We stop it, we stop it, we absolutely stop it. We can’t have it.

“You just ban it. The president bans it. You don’t let it happen. It’s not a big deal.”

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Earthquake swarm rattles central Nevada near Tonopah along newly identified fault

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Earthquake swarm rattles central Nevada near Tonopah along newly identified fault


A swarm of earthquakes has been rattling a remote stretch of central Nevada near Tonopah, including a magnitude 4.0 quake that hit near Warm Springs Tuesday morning.

Seismologists said the activity is typical for Nevada, where clusters of earthquakes can flare up in a concentrated area. “This is a very Nevada-style earthquake sequence. We have these a lot where we just see an uptick in activity in a certain spot,” said Christie Rowe, director of the Nevada Seismological Lab.

The latest magnitude 4.0 quake struck east of Tonopah near Warm Springs. The largest earthquake in the swarm so far has measured a 4.2.

What has stood out to researchers is the fault involved. Rowe said the earthquakes are occurring along a fault stretching along the southern edge of the Monitor and Antelope ranges — and that it was previously unknown to scientists. “We didn’t know this fault was there. It’s a new fault to us — not to the Earth, obviously — but it was previously unknown,” Rowe said.

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For now, the earthquakes have remained moderate. Rowe said the lab would not deploy additional temporary sensors unless activity increases to around a magnitude 5 or greater.

Seismologists said they are continuing to watch the swarm closely as Nevada works to bring the ShakeAlert early warning system to the state. The program, already active in neighboring states, can send cellphone alerts seconds before shaking arrives. “For me, it’s a really high priority. That distance to the faults gives us enough time to warn people — and that can make a big difference in reducing injuries and damage,” Rowe said.

Seismologists encouraged anyone who feels shaking to report it through the U.S. Geological Survey’s “Did You Feel It” system, saying even small quakes can help scientists better understand Nevada’s seismic activity.

Experts said the swarm is worth monitoring but is not cause for alarm. They noted that earthquakes like the 5.8 that hit near Yerington in December 2024 typically happen in Nevada about every eight to 10 years, and said they will continue monitoring the current activity closely.



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Kalshi Enforcement Action Belongs in Nevada Court, Judge Says

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Kalshi Enforcement Action Belongs in Nevada Court, Judge Says


Nevada state court is the proper venue for reviewing whether KalshiEX LLC is improperly accepting sports wagers without a license, a federal district court said.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board showed that the state statutes under which it seeks relief don’t require interpreting federal law, Judge Miranda M. Du of the US District Court for the District of Nevada said in a Monday order. The board’s action is now remanded to the First Judicial District Court in Carson City, Nev., the order said.

The board in 2025 urged Kalshi, a financial services company, to get a gaming license, but the …



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EDITORIAL: Nevada still vulnerable as tourist downturn continues

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EDITORIAL: Nevada still vulnerable as tourist downturn continues


Strip gaming executives can put their best spin on the numbers, but local tourism indicators remain a major concern. Casino operators seeking to draw more people through the door still have much work to do.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board released January gaming numbers Friday. The news was underwhelming. The state gaming win was down 6.6 percent from a year earlier. The Strip took the largest hit, an 11 percent drop. But the gloomy returns were spread throughout Clark County: Downtown Las Vegas was off 5.2 percent, Laughlin suffered a 3.3 percent decline and the Boulder Strip dipped by 7 percent.

For the current fiscal year, gaming tax collections are up a paltry
2.1 percent, below budget projections.

The red flags include more than gaming numbers. Recently released figures for 2025 reveal that visitation to Las Vegas fell nearly 8 percent from 2024, which represented the lowest total since the pandemic in 2021. Traffic at Reid International Airport fell more than 10 percent in December and was down 6 percent for the year. Strip occupancy rates fell 3 percent in 2025.

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To be fair, this is not just a Las Vegas problem. International travel to the United States was down
4.8 percent in January, Forbes reported, the ninth straight month of decline. Travel from Europe fell 5.2 percent, and passenger counts from Asia fell 7.5 percent. Canadian tourism cratered by 22 percent.

No doubt that President Donald Trump’s blustery rhetoric has played a role in the decline, but there’s more at work. International tourism has been largely flat since Barack Obama’s last few years in office. But domestic travel has held relatively steady although it is “starting to cool,” according to the U.S. Travel Association. Las Vegas hasn’t been helped by high-profile complaints last year about exorbitant Strip prices for parking, bottled water and other staples. Casino operators responded by offering discounts, particularly for locals, and they’ll need to continue those policies into 2026.

The tourism downturn has ramifications for the state budget, which relies primarily on sales and gaming tax revenues to support spending plans. “Nevada’s employment and economic challenges reflect deep structural factors that extend beyond cyclical economic fluctuations,” noted a recent report by economic analyst John Restrepo. “The state’s extreme concentration in tourism and gaming creates unique vulnerabilities.”

The irony is that state and local politicians have been talking for the past half century about “diversifying” the state economy. In recent years, that effort has primarily consisted of handing out millions in tax breaks and other incentives to attract businesses to the state. A dispassionate observer might ask whether that approach has brought an adequate return on investment.

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