Oklahoma State’s win over BYU was overshadowed by allegations of derogatory fan chants. Wednesday’s BYU-Oklahoma State game marked the fourth known instance in a year that fans have been accused of using offensive chants during a college basketball game.

The Big 12 Conference later said it launched an investigation into the matter. “All parties have been notified,” the statement said. “The Conference has zero tolerance for behavior of this nature and will address the matter in accordance with Big 12 sportsmanship policies,” 

After the game, Cougars men’s basketball coach Kevin Young said he heard the Oklahoma State student section chanting, “F The Mormons.”

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BYU Cougars head coach Kevin Young reacts during the first half against the Utah Utes at Marriott Center on Jan. 24, 2026 in Provo, Utah. (Aaron Baker/Imagn Images)

Young also asserted that his children would once again have questions about what allegedly transpired in Stillwater.

“It’s a great win for Oklahoma State University. Their fans should be proud,” he said. “It would be great if some class was warranted in there as well. I’ve got four small kids at home. I’m a Mormon. When I go home, they’re going to ask me about it, same way as they asked me about it last year at Arizona,” the second-year Cougars coach said.

BYU Cougars basketball coach Kevin Young watches a play during the first half of their game against the Utah Utes at the Jon M Huntsman Center on Jan. 10, 2026 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Chris Gardner/Getty Images)

Young concluded that the level of “hate in the world” was evident in fans directing disparaging language toward an opposing team. “There’s just too much hate in the world to be saying stuff like that. We’ve got enough problems in our world without going at people’s religion and beliefs and whether it’s in vogue or not.”

BYU is the flagship school for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church. Fox News Digital contacted both BYU and Oklahoma State athletics departments for comment.

Oklahoma State President Jim Hess sent the following statement to Fox News Digital:

“I am aware of concerns raised by BYU’s coaching staff regarding the conduct of some individuals in attendance at Wednesday’s basketball game. Any behavior that targets or demeans others has no place at Oklahoma State University and does not reflect who we are as Cowboys. The Cowboy Code calls us to treat others with respect and dignity, and we are reviewing what occurred and will address any violations of our standards of conduct appropriately.

“Oklahoma State University values the relationship we have with BYU and deeply respects their community and their faith. I have reached out to BYU leadership directly to express our commitment to upholding the standards we expect from our community. We will continue to work with our students and fans to ensure that the atmosphere at our events reflects the values of the Cowboy family.”

BYU officials did not immediately respond.

As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Oklahoma State fans rushed the court to celebrate the upset of No. 16 BYU.

Fans rush the court after a BIG 12 men’s college basketball game between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and the BYU Cougars at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma on Feb. 4, 2026. (BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

Last February, Arizona apologized after the school said some fans participated in an “unacceptable chant” following the basketball team’s 96-95 loss to BYU in Tucson. According to online video, fans could be heard yelling a profane phrase directed at Mormons as the teams were leaving the court.

In September, Colorado apologized and was fined $50,000 by the Big 12 after football fans directed expletives and religious slurs at Mormons during a 24-21 loss to the Cougars in Boulder. In November, Cincinnati apologized for football fans’ anti-Mormon chants during a 26-14 loss to BYU in Ohio.

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Young said four or five players on BYU’s roster are Mormon.

“I understand what we represent. Even for a guy like AJ, that stuff is unwarranted. Like I said, man, I try to talk to our guys about being examples in the world, why we can use basketball to really just bring people together and not tear people apart. It’s something we talk about a lot. It’s just disappointing.

“I hope someone prints that, I hope it’s in bold on someone’s publication and just try to maybe together as a society we can just help the world kind of move forward and not divide each other with hate and things that are really nonsensical.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In a crowd of hundreds, two voices on the royal visit to Essex would inevitably end up grabbing some of the attention.

A man heckling about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in an apparent reference to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and a reporter asking a question, neither getting any kind of response from the King.

The monarch was dodging the questions and the wet weather in Dedham.

He’s been in this position many times over the years, scandals threatening to overshadow his engagements.

His approach – and I’ve seen it on many occasions – is don’t answer and don’t give the story further oxygen.

A man in the crowd, who was wearing a grey hat and holding a blue umbrella, shouted as the King was near him: “Charles, Charles, have you pressurised the police to start investigating Andrew?”

Shortly afterwards a news reporter in the crowd – who was beside a cameraman – apparently tried to ask Charles a question about his brother.

The shouts are a story but his response, should he give one, would be much bigger.

That will frustrate those who believe the monarch should say more, that the institution has questions to answer about Andrew and the Epstein files.

From speaking to palace sources, they’re clearly keen to make sure the public don’t think they’re burying their heads in the sand on this.

Like all of us they can’t help but watch developments closely, especially when they involve one of their own.

In some ways, the fact Prince Edward was bounced into answering a question about it, while on an official trip in Dubai, did them a favour.

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He could again publicly reiterate the new palace line that the focus should be on remembering the victims, repeating an important part of the palace statement released back in October when the King stripped Andrew of his home and titles.

On Thursday, his priority would have been the hundreds of people who were braving the cold and the rain to see him and the Queen, and celebrating the community of Dedham.

Largely a crowd who believe that he’s done the right things so far and that his brother has left him in a really tricky position, a crowd who also didn’t appreciate the King being shouted at.

Like the monarch they didn’t want Andrew to distract from their big day, but the enormity of the Epstein scandal always meant that was in many ways unpreventable.

Irondale Mayor James Stewart, Jr. cited Martin Luther King Jr. as justification for protecting illegal immigrants and pledged funds to train activists to track ICE agents. However, his actions may prompt federal blowback, as Alabama’s senior senator warned the mayor he “won’t like me very much” if he follows through.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. — who is also running to succeed term-limited Gov. Kay Ivey this year — warned Stewart that the Democrat will have no such luck circumventing the feds.

“When I’m governor, Alabama will have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to rogue mayors trying to go around federal law,” Tuberville, the ex-Auburn football coach, told Fox News Digital.

“Like it or not, federal law says that illegal immigrants must be deported. If mayors don’t like that, they should run for Congress.”

ANTI-ICE LEGISLATION HEADS TO DESK OF RISING STAR DEMOCRAT GOVERNOR, TESTING HIS PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., speaks left as President Donald Trump, right, listens. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to Stewart’s office after he said in his February mayoral newsletter that “watching ICE operations tear families apart in Irondale highlights the urgent need to address immigration policies affecting our community, which brings me back to King’s final speech, the one where he said he’d seen the Promised Land but might not get there.”

“I understand that now. This may be my last term. But I still have to do God’s will. Every single day. When Dr. King said, ‘I just want to do God’s will’ the night before they killed him, it brings me to tears. Because I know what that means now,” Stewart said.

Stewart said ICE operations are “following the same pattern” King described in his letter from jail in Birmingham, adjacent to Irondale.

Tuberville further took issue with reporting from Alabama news outlet 1819 News – so named for the state’s founding year – that Irondale has contracted with the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ACIJ) to aid programs such as a “warning system to track [ICE] agents at the behest of the city’s mayor.”

In that regard, Stewart said in his newsletter his King-inspired work is not done while “families who built this community are being hunted.”

Days after Stewart’s newsletter publication, knife-wielding Mexican illegal immigrant Jose Ba-Ruiz was arrested and charged Monday by the Justice Department for assaulting an ICE agent in the Birmingham area.

MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR AVOIDS QUESTION ON OPPOSING OBAMA-ERA IMMIGRATION POLICY NOW PUSHED BY TRUMP

Interstate 20 enters Alabama from Georgia, as drivers gain an hour crossing into Central Time, at Abernathy, Ala.  (Charles Creitz/Fox News Digital)

In comments to Fox News Digital, Ivey backed up Tuberville, saying Montgomery will always work with DHS:

“Unlike Minnesota, in Alabama, we enforce the law,” Ivey said.

“We are proud to work with ICE to do just that: Enforce the laws and protect our citizens from criminals and lawbreakers.”

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While Stewart did not respond to Fox News Digital by publication time, he told Fox’s Birmingham affiliate that Irondale is not a sanctuary city and will not hide criminals from the law, and then claimed he won’t actually interfere with ICE operations.

“A lot of the things that we see now are the things that were going on 300 to 400 years ago,” he told the outlet. “We want to be a law-abiding city, but we also know our role.”

It was hardly a ringing endorsement of the deal. But it could have been a lot worse.

And after the week Sir Keir Starmer has just been through, President Trump’s grudging support for the controversial Chagos deal will have come as a relief.

The good news for the PM was the president signalling he won’t now block the deal the Conservatives and Reform UK have claimed is a surrender.

The bad news is that the president has warned that if anything goes wrong in future, the US won’t hesitate to send in the gunships and take over the islands.

So it’s a rare piece of moderately good news for the PM amid a relentless onslaught from opponents and Labour MPs over his bungling of the Mandelson-Epstein scandal.

The Chagos deal the prime minister had made, the president said on his Truth Social, was “according to many, the best he could make”.

According to many? Who does he mean? Obviously not former ambassador Mandelson. He’s now a disgraced non-person and probably just a distant memory in Washington.

“Peter who?” they’ll no doubt be saying in the White House these days. “We’ll never forget old whatshisname.”

The news from the White House is moderately good for Sir Keir because only a few weeks ago the president called his Chagos deal “an act of great stupidity” and “total weakness”.

That savage criticism emboldened Conservative and Reform UK MPs and Tory peers at Westminster to attempt to kill the Chagos legislation, which is currently holed below the waterline in the House of Lords.

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Trump slams Starmer over Chagos deal

A few days after the president’s “stupidity” claim, Kemi Badenoch taunted Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs: “We didn’t need President Trump to tell us that. We’ve been saying that for 12 months.”

The president began his statement by claiming he’d had “very productive discussions” with Sir Keir. We know they had a phone call and discussed Diego Garcia on Tuesday.

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The prime minister was said to have offered him extra security guarantees and there was another phone call on Thursday before the president’s Truth Social post.

The Chagos deal proposes the UK transferring sovereignty of the islands whilst leasing back a joint UK-US military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, for an initial 99 years.

But the president’s statement is by no means all good news for the prime minister. There was also a pretty intimidating warning that if anything goes wrong the Americans will flex their mighty military muscles.

“If the lease deal, some time in the future, ever falls apart, or anyone threatens or endangers US operations and forces at our base, I retain the right to militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia.”

This is, after all, a president who wants to seize Greenland for the United States and even make Canada the 51st US state. Don’t forget, he called Canadian prime minister Mark Carney “Governor Carney”.

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How the Chagos Islands exposes ‘incredible vulnerability’ for UK

The president concluded his Truth Social statement: “Let it be known that I will never allow our presence on a base as important as this to ever be undermined or threatened by fake claims or environmental nonsense.”

That’s a reference to the fact that Diego Garcia is a bird sanctuary for endangered species, including the splendidly named “red-footed boobies”, as well as rare turtles and coral reefs.

But back at Westminster, the battle over Chagos is far from over. Dame Priti Patel MP, the shadow foreign secretary, reacted: “Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson’s shameful Chagos surrender remains an absolutely terrible deal for Britain.

“The Conservative Party’s view is unchanged. We have led the fight against this appalling surrender and we will continue fighting it to the end.”

There’s also the possibility – and risk for Sir Keir – that the president may change his mind on Chagos yet again. After all, he backed the deal at first, then changed his mind and said it was “an act of great stupidity”.

So the PM might as well be grateful for now and hope for the best.

After all, while the president’s latest Chagos statement may not be brilliant news, it’s the only bit of decent news Sir Keir has had in a dreadful week.

The Trump administration is shifting its approach to cracking down on illegal immigration in Minneapolis after federal agents’ actions drew scrutiny and sparked protests, sources tell Fox News.

Minneapolis has become a flash point for clashes between federal immigration enforcement agents and agitators, particularly following the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Local leaders slammed the Trump administration’s actions in Minneapolis, with Mayor Jacob Frey calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “get the f— out” of his city after Good was fatally shot.

Amid the unrest, President Donald Trump moved to change his administration’s approach and sent border czar Tom Homan to manage the situation. 

A White House official appeared to dismiss rumors of tension between Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Homan, saying that the two were working together to carry out the president’s agenda.

HOMAN ANNOUNCES DRAWDOWN OF FEDERAL PRESENCE IN MINNESOTA, HAILS ‘UNPRECEDENTED COOPERATION’ FROM LOCAL POLICE

White House border czar Tom Homan attends a press conference in Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 29, 2026.  (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

“Thanks to Tom Homan’s tireless work, an unprecedented number of counties in Minnesota have agreed to coordinate with ICE to transfer custody of criminal aliens upon their release. This is one of the conditions President Trump set for a draw down. These commitments have been made by local officials, and will continue to be monitored for compliance,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital.

Not all of Homan’s changes have been kept behind closed doors. The border czar announced the immediate drawdown of 700 personnel from Minnesota, effective Wednesday, though 2,000 officers will remain. He cited improved cooperation with jails and said that a complete drawdown was the goal, but it was “contingent upon the end of illegal and threatening activities against ICE.”

A federal agent prepares to depart the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on Feb. 4, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (John Moore/Getty Images)

MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR TO VISIT DC TO PUSH FOR END OF ‘UNLAWFUL ICE OPERATIONS’ AFTER TRUMP’S BLUNT WARNING

Homan has reportedly changed how Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) operates and interacts with suspected illegal immigrants. The border czar has reportedly increased the threshold for making arrests and shifted entirely to targeted operations as opposed to rover patrols, which were seen under Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, according to sources. 

Under Homan’s leadership, CBP agents have been instructed to not approach anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally unless they are a target, according to sources. CBP agents will instead be partnered with ICE officers to make targeted arrests, sources said. Additionally, sources told Fox News that Homan gave agents a warning that there would be consequences for stepping out of line.

A White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital that while officers on the ground in Minnesota will be making targeted arrests, they will also “enforce federal immigration law” if, during an operation, they “come across additional illegal aliens.”

A person is detained by federal agents on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Minneapolis.  (Ryan Murphy/AP)

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Fox News has been told that there are thousands of targets in Minnesota and that targets are being identified through public records, which are run through a DHS database that provides criminal history, immigration history, invalid immigration documents and information on whether they have failed to appear for any immigration court hearings. 

Sources say that fingerprints have been used to identify targets, as anyone who entered the country illegally under the Biden administration and encountered CBP was fingerprinted. If an illegal immigrant is arrested by a local police department, DHS gets an alert on where they were fingerprinted and what the arrest was for.

DHS did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.