Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers and Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels have a $10,000 bet on which LSU standout is going to win Rookie of the Year in 2024.

Nabers told The Pivot podcast that he and his college teammate made the bet well before draft night, when Daniels went No. 2 overall to Washington and Nabers went No. 6 to New York.

“Going against him is gonna be fun,” Nabers, 20, told The Pivot in Detroit last Thursday after getting picked. “We got a bet going for Rookie of the Year. Whoever loses gotta pay, I think it’s $10,000 cash.”

The two former Tigers stars are now division rivals, so they are guaranteed to face each other twice a year in the NFC East.

Nabers said both he and Daniels will have no problem treating each other as rivals.

“When we walk out that tunnel, me and him — since we [are] on different sides — we know it’s time to talk sh-t now,” Nabers said with a smile. “We done talked sh-t with other people. So it’s time to talk sh-t with each other.”

Daniels is a major reason that Nabers is in this position, though, he said. So that living out their dreams together as opponents will mean the world to them personally.

“Having that guy as a teammate, he’s a great leader, a great person to be around,” Nabers said. “I probably wouldn’t have had the year I had without him — by him pushing me every day at practice, by him waking me up in the morning to go watch film, him having my back through it all. Just having that guy in my corner has been the best.

He said their first jersey swap will be a “great moment.”

“Having that LSU legendary status when you [are] going into the league, seeing your brother across that you played with, ya’ll guys finally accomplished your dreams,” Nabers said. “So having that brother two times a year on a gameday, able to talk sh-t, able to share jersey swaps with him. That jersey’s gonna mean a lot to me and him.”

Not that Nabers will be focused on anything but winning. The young receiver’s confidence and swagger jumped off the screen as he explained his killer mentality to hosts Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder.

“This game could have been taken from me early a lot of different times. So when I’m out there on the field, the mentality that I have is, ‘I’m gonna f— you over,’” Nabers said. “When I get that opportunity, I’m gonna do it. Because a person’s gonna do it to me. So if I can do it to you before you do it to me 100 times on the field before you can get that one, I’m gonna keep doing it every time.

“I’m not gonna stop,” Nabers continued. “It is what it is. Because that one time it’s gonna happen to me, it’s gonna be pushed and talked about more than anything. So if I got the ups, I got the ups. That’s just how it is. I’m hoping to have the ups every time.”

Nabers didn’t know he was going to the Giants specifically when the first round of the NFL Draft arrived, but he said “I kept hearing I’m not getting past top 8.”

“So they was telling me anybody after four, you make ’em pay when you play ’em,” he said. “So it was just whoever passes me up after that, it’s war after that.”

That puts the Los Angeles Chargers on the hook as a team Nabers has circled to embarrass whenever he faces them.

It stuck out how much this journey means to Nabers personally, however, when he described the dinner he had with family and friends in Detroit the night before the draft.

“We shared tears in this restaurant,” he said. “Last night I went around the table. And I spoke about [how] all the people that [were] here at the table [were] here for a reason. I shared a story that a lot of them probably thought I forgot or didn’t know. A lot of key moments in my past that — they helped me when I was a child, they helped my mother, when she didn’t have — they helped me when I didn’t have school clothes to go to school.

“So it was just the little things that mattered to me when I was a kid that led to this moment,” he added. “The little things that counted for me rather than the big things. To spend that night with them, they’ve been crying all week, crying all month to hear my name. So I’m just living it up with them.”

And he balances that sentiment with supreme confidence that he takes to the field.

Like how he handles the pressure of being the next great LSU wide receiver.

“I know there’s gonna be a lot on my shoulders for that — but I’m like that,” Nabers said with a huge grin.

Asked how he will handle New York, Nabers said: “I got a nice smile so, I got a nice style so, yeah. I’m ready.”

After NYU said it would proceed with disciplinary action against protesters at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment — citing students’ failure to respond in negotiations and decision to remain at the demonstration — NYU’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition and faculty mediators denied the university’s account of student meetings with administrators, calling it “disingenuous” and “misleading.” NYU PSC also said negotiations are currently “at a standstill.”

In a statement yesterday afternoon, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said protesters had agreed to leave the encampment in exchange for “many hours of discussion” with administrators on Saturday, and that “students failed to honor that promise.” Beckman cited a last-minute decision “that all demands must be met as well” for students to leave the encampment as having caused negotiations to fall through on Saturday. He said the decision came at the insistence of “others, including, we believe, outsiders.”

Beckman also said that the next day, NYU gave protesters two options: to cease overnight stays at the encampment and proceed with discussions, or continue staying overnight and face conduct charges. According to his statement, students did not respond to the university’s proposals.

In a statement in response to the university, NYU PSC challenged Beckman’s account of events, saying student organizers had discussed all four of their demands from the beginning of negotiations. Protesters’ demands include the disclosure of the university’s investments, divestment from companies with ties to Israel, the closure of NYU Tel Aviv, the removal of police from campus and the pardoning of disciplinary action taken against pro-Palestinian protesters.

NYU PSC said the university had offered to disclose its investments and pardon the protesters arrested at Gould Plaza if demonstrators agreed to leave the current encampment during the nighttime, but that student protesters refused it. The group also said negotiations are currently “at a standstill.”

“The students have made it clear what the only appropriate resolution is,” NYU PSC’s statement reads. “We will not de-escalate, we will not de-camp and we will not rest until this university cuts every last tie, monetary or otherwise, from the Zionist project.”

Three faculty mediators who were present at the negotiations backed much of NYU PSC’s account of events in a letter to administrators. The professors said the university’s statement misinterpreted communications about student organizers’ decision-making process as involvement by “outsiders” in negotiations. They called for NYU to issue an apology for and retract its statement on the negotiations.

“We also note that this is the second time since Monday April 22, 2024, that NYU has released an official statement describing events in tendentious ways without accurate information,” the letter reads. “At best, this pattern of misrepresentation demonstrates incompetent communication among senior administration. At worst, it indicates a reckless and calculated disregard to the safety and well-being of our students.”

An NYU spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Contact Carmo Moniz at [email protected].

“No people were injured in the incident, and the three animals that were re-captured seem to be in good condition as well with no injuries.”

Drivers in Washington state were in for a surprise when they spotted a group of zebras, possibly inspired their friend Marty from “Madagascar,” galloping on the highway.

Washington State Patrol, in an email to USA TODAY, said that four zebras were on their way to Montana, when the driver of their trailer stopped off an exit to secure the trailer that had reportedly become unsecure. The four ‒ which included two adult mares, one stallion and one filly ‒ saw it as an opportunity and escaped from the trailer, running amok on the highway.

While officials and passersby were able to corral three of the zebras, a fourth, the stallion, continues to remain loose, the spokesperson said Monday morning.

No injuries reported

Cameron Satterfield, a spokesperson of the Regional Animal Services of King County, confirmed the same, adding that the three zebras who were corralled were returned to their owner, while the fourth remains at large.

Satterfield said that a “nearby good Samaritan with a horse pasture was able to help corral the zebras.”

“The zebras’ owner was able to bring their trailer to the pasture to pick up the three that were captured and make sure they were secured,” Satterfield said via email. “No people were injured in the incident, and the three animals that were re-captured seem to be in good condition as well with no injuries.”

An investigation report viewed by USA TODAY showed that the incident took place shortly before 1 p.m. Sunday. The owner of the four zebras, Kristine Keltgen was driving them from Winlock, Washington to Anaconda, Montana when she noticed the trailer’s “floor mat flapping and dragging.” As Keltgen stopped and opened the door of the trailer to adjust the mat, the zebras rushed out of the trailer and onto the roadway.

Video footage from the incident, captured by passersby, shows the zebras trotting on the highway among cars and munching on grass before making their way to the backyard of a house near the highway.

Zebras run wild along Washington state highway

Video captured the moments when four zebras were seen running though traffic in Washington state.

‘They’re in my yard’

Whitney Blomquist, who lives at the house, where the zebras wound up, told KOLOTV that she was shocked to see the zebras in her backyard.

“I called someone and was like, ‘Um, so I found the missing zebras. They’re in my yard,” Blomquist said. “Uh, you know, not sure what to do.’”

Blomquist told KOMO News that her security cameras have caught bears multiple times, but spotting the zebras was a first.

“I’ve had plenty of bears in my yard, but this was a new one, for sure,” Blomquist said.

One of the drivers on the highway Dan Barnett told KOLO TV that several cars on the off-ramp pulled over by the guardrail to contain the zebras and prevent them from escaping onto the interstate where they could be hit by speeding vehicles.

Authorities have requested anyone who spots the 4th zebra to call RASKC at 206-296-7387 or law enforcement at 911. Meanwhile, the other 3 continue to be transported back to Montana, according to the investigation report.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X @saman_shafiq7.