One of Morgan Wallen’s hit songs could have sounded a lot different had another country artist not turned it down beforehand.
During a recent appearance on Bobby Bones’ podcast “BobbyCast,” country superstar Luke Bryan revealed that he “stupidly” passed on the tune “Sand in My Boots” solely due to the fact that “it had a Chevrolet in it.”
“I just went through two years of my life where I was like, ‘Man, I sing about trucks a lot, I sing about tailgates,'” he explained. “I got in my head a little bit because I think I had a lot of negativity, socially, on socials, that I was getting pegged as maybe a one-trick pony in that lane.”
The song’s chorus mentions “dodging potholes in my sunburnt Silverado,” which references a Chevrolet pickup truck.
“Sand in My Boots” ultimately appeared on Wallen’s second studio album, 2021’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” and went on to become one of the artist’s biggest hits.
Bryan also described feeling a bit “overlooked” during this time, saying he had made a name for himself as the guy whose personality screams, “Let’s have some fun!,” but felt it was “time to move on” from making what he called “spring break albums.”
“It was awesome, and it totally told the world that’s my personality,” Bryan said. “If I don’t get male vocalist of the year [honors] and Grammys, because I may be known as the guy that has had fun throughout his career and put out a lot of fun songs, I’m cool with that.”
The country crooner first broke out on the music scene in 2007 with the hit “All My Friends Say,” which was the debut single from his first album, “I’ll Stay Me.” Bryan further scored with 2011’s “Country Girl (Shake It for Me),” which went on to become his biggest hit.
Bryan joined Katy Perry and Lionel Richie as a judge on “American Idol” when it was rebooted in March 2018. The three worked together on the show until Perry left in May 2024.
Perry announced her decision to leave the show during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in February 2024, with Bryan later admitting her decision “wasn’t like a huge shock” to him.
“It’s been a good run with Katy, and she and I have developed a great friendship and to work alongside her, I mean, heck, I was there before her daughter was born, and now her daughter is 3 years old,” he said.
It was later announced the “California Girls” singer would be replaced by former “American Idol” winner Carrie Underwood.
“I think I can be honest and constructive, but still kind. I think that’s the whole point, ’cause people are coming in, and you know… it’s dreams,” Underwood told SiriusXM’s “Music Row Happy Hour” about her judging style. “You’re a part of somebody’s story from that moment on. I think it’s important to be honest, but I think it’s also very important to be kind. Hopefully, I can marry all of those together.”
TEL AVIV — The Israeli Air Force on Thursday struck the headquarters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Damascus, Syria, amid ongoing instability in the country following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad by an al Qaeda-linked insurgency.
After the fall of Damascus on Dec. 8, 2024, Israel deployed troops to the demilitarized buffer zone with Syria while also launching a diplomatic offensive to shape the balance of power.
“The deployment of Israeli forces is concentrated around the Syrian [side of Mount] Hermon, the high grounds in that area and below that on the northern part of the Syrian Golan Heights — more or less along, but not beyond, the Bravo Line [marking the end of the buffer zone],” Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman and now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.
He continued, “The primary threat is a ground invasion towards Israeli communities on the Golan Heights by various jihadi elements. Until the political and military situation stabilizes and Israel can have security guarantees that there is indeed a sovereign entity in control of Syria, which will limit the approach by various terror organizations, Israeli troops will be deployed.”
While many global players may be willing to turn a blind eye to the carnage in Syria in hopes of resolving the nearly 15-year crisis, analysts say Israel has no such illusions, prompting the IDF to conduct over 300 strikes in the country, including against Assad regime air force bases and suspected chemical weapons sites, in the immediate aftermath of the regime change.
On Sunday, Israel seemingly upped the ante when the new IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, held a situational assessment in the buffer zone with Syria. Zamir was the first chief of staff to have entered Syria.
“Immediately upon the fall of the regime, [Israel] devastated Syrian military capabilities to make sure some advanced capabilities and air defense [systems] would not fall into the hands of this regime and would be cleared in case Israel has any future desire to overfly [in] Syria,” said John Hannah, a Senior Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
“They’ve [also] set up checkpoints in certain Druze areas right on the border [and] declared their willingness to protect the Druze. Israel has a significant Druze minority of its own who are loyal and good citizens of Israel who fight in its army. So, Israel has a deep domestic concern and interest with making sure that Druze communities near its borders [in Syria] are not subject to the kinds of threats and slaughter that we saw over the weekend along the [Syrian] coast,” he added.
Some 1,000 Alawites, a minority sect of Shiite Islam, as well as a number of Christians were murdered over the course of a few days last week in the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia. The killings have laid bare concerns over the new Sunni Islamist government led by al-Sharaa, commander of the al Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that deposed Assad.
Conricus said that the massacres have validated Israel’s strategy, emphasizing that the persecution of the Alawites, Christians, Kurds and Druze population constitutes a danger to regional stability.
“There is a lot of sectarian violence by various foreign jihadi groups, which is a threat. Until only the Syrian state controls the weapons, Israel cannot jeopardize the life of Israeli civilians,” he said.
“We know Hezbollah and Iranian factions continue to try to smuggle weapons into Syria, with Tehran still trying to operate proxies. This is compounded by Turkish imperialistic behavior, which can lead to confrontation,” he added. “I think trying to keep the borders defined by the French at the end of World War I will be a challenge for the Syrian state.”
Jonathan Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum who has reported from Syria, told Fox News Digital that Jerusalem’s aim is for Syria to remain decentralized and weak, rather than united under the leadership of jihadi forces.
“Turkey is the main backer of HTS, and Israel regards Ankara as a hostile country where Hamas had an active operations office. Turkey has been supportive of Hamas in the war,” he said.
“While Russia is opposed to the global bloc led by the U.S., of which Israel is a part, there is no direct clash between the two nations. Russia did not seek to impede Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran in Syria.”
Israel is reportedly pressuring the Trump administration to ensure Syria remains fragmented, by giving the Russians a green light to maintain its bases in the country to counter Turkey.
In 2015, Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime, setting up outposts in the Middle East for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Jerusalem and Moscow have created a deconfliction mechanism to avoid direct military encounters when the IDF strikes Iranian terror assets in Syria, along with those destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“HTS is an organization that Israel knows well. It was there for several years prior to fall of Assad and its record shows it is a Sunni Jihadi Islamist organization supportive of [Hamas’] Oct. 7 [massacre] and opposed to Israel and Jews,” Spyer said.
“Israel’s experience prior to Oct. 7, on Oct. 7, and in the Gaza war taught Israelis not to have illusions regarding Sunni Islamists even when they say they are moderate,” he added.
The “hostile political climate” of the Trump administration means that states must “rethink” their mandated abortion reporting requirements and “vigorously oppose new ones,” according to the nation’s leading abortion research institute. But one pro-life activist told Fox News Digital such a move would be a “serious mistake.”
A Guttmacher Institute policy analysis report published this month concluded that “the benefits of state-mandated abortion reporting no longer outweigh the risks, a shift that is likely to accelerate as anti-abortion policymakers double down on punitive approaches to data collection while using the resulting data to further restrict abortion rights and access.”
“The enactment of abortion reporting requirements for purely political reasons and their increasing weaponization against patients and providers are clear indications that the harms of this mandatory data collection now outweigh its benefits,” researchers for the pro-abortion rights group said. “To prevent further harms, policymakers at all levels of government should work to remove existing reporting requirements and vigorously oppose new ones, along with any attempt to tie federal funding to abortion reporting.”
Guttmacher, which is considered the gold standard for accurate abortion statistics since it provides more comprehensive data and receives more reporting than the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recommended that, instead of doing away with reporting altogether, state policymakers should implement a voluntary form of data collection.
Pro-life advocates object to the Guttmacher recommendation.
“Rolling back state-mandated abortion reporting would be a serious mistake,” Mia Steupert, research associate at Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life research group, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Considering Dobbs placed the authority to enact protections for unborn children in the hands of the American people and their elected representatives at the federal and state levels, it’s critical to have access to good data so that the impact of those abortion policies can be evaluated,” Steupert said, referring to the 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
The normative practice of abortion data collection comes primarily from states that report their numbers to the CDC. The data is then compiled to give a snapshot of how many abortions there are nationwide, the age of the mother and how far along she was. However, while most do, not every state requires abortion providers, hospitals and other medical providers to report their numbers.
Currently, 46 states and the District of Columbia have some form of mandated abortion reporting, according to the institute. California, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey do not require reporting.
“Even the CDC agrees that accurate abortion data is important for public health in terms of measuring unintended pregnancies and tracking changes in clinical practice,” Steupert said. “Ending state reporting requirements would give the abortion lobby a monopoly on abortion reporting, leaving the American people in the dark about the horrific realities of abortion.”
The information gathered in abortion reports varies by state but generally includes details such as the names of the medical facility and clinician involved in the abortion service. Demographic data on the person receiving an abortion, including age, race, ethnicity, marital status, place of residence, gestational age of the pregnancy, the type of abortion elected and number of previous live births are also included.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for Guttmacher said their “recommendation isn’t an argument against states collecting abortion data, but a discussion of the risks and burdens of howit’s collected.”
“Ending government-mandated abortion reporting does not contradict the collection of rigorous and accurate abortion data. We urge states to consider changing their laws and regulations to switch to voluntary models of data collection, which can produce high quality data while protecting the safety and privacy of patients and providers. We strongly oppose the intrusive and punitive federal abortion reporting mandate laid out in Project 2025,” the spokesperson said.
Project 2025 refers to a policy blueprint by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and is not an official Trump administration policy guide.
The report comes nearly three years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – the 1973 decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to abortion – and many states have since enacted abortion bans.
The Trump administration also rolled back a Biden-era executive order that federally funded abortion services, re-enacting the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal taxpayer dollars for elective abortions.
Cavinder recently scrubbed Beck off her entire Instagram; Cavinder, along with her sister, Haley, play basketball at the University of Miami, while Beck recently transferred there from Georgia for his final year of eligibility.
Hanna posted TikToks of herself and Beck on a trip with twins sister and her boyfriend, Dallas Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson, earlier this week.
But, according to Betr Media, it appeared that Beck added another girl on Snapchat, saying that he and Cavinder broke up “literally this past weekend.” Another apparent message said that “things just start not working out ya know, feel it coming.”
Haley took to the twins’ joint TikTok account to share her thoughts, all but confirming her sister and Beck had split.
“I just want to say one thing, because I can’t be too crazy unfiltered on here: if your sister comes to you or your friend or someone that’s really important in your life, and they have a gut feeling about a relationship or a friendship, for example, and they just tell you that on a repeated basis, trust your dang sister. Trust her,” Haley said. “She’s always right. I promise you or your mom, they’re always right…
“It’s not my story to tell, I know there’s a lot of speculation, and I see someone in my life that’s hurting, and I don’t think it’s OK to not be able to have to always keep your mouth shut. I’m trying to be as nice as possible.”
This is not Beck’s first incident with Snapchat; he was once accused of sending raunchy messages to other girls.
Beck and Hanna each had a vehicle stolen last month in Florida.
Beck, the former starting quarterback at Georgia, declared for the 2025 NFL Draft in December, just days after undergoing season-ending elbow surgery. He was injured in the first half of the Bulldogs’ overtime victory over Texas in the SEC championship game.
The Cavinders initially said they were skipping their final year of eligibility, with Hanna completing her playing career,r and Haley saying she would play this season at TCU. However, they both returned to the Canes.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg signed off on tech reporter Kara Swisher’s dream of buying The Washington Post from Jeff Bezos or the idea that it may even be “time for a new newspaper.”
Swisher said last year that she was working toward assembling a group of investors to purchase the Post, although the billionaire Amazon founder has given no indication he is willing to sell the Washington, D.C. paper.
The Post has suffered an exodus of high-profile reporters and editors in recent months and irked some readers and staffers alike when it announced last year that it would not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Bezos, who took credit for nixing a planned endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, has further annoyed staffers with recent changes to the paper’s opinion page.
Amidst the ongoing drama inside the Post, Swisher reiterated her desire to purchase the paper during Thursday’s episode of “The View,” saying she knows plenty of billionaires who would help.
“The money is not the issue. The issue is Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to sell it because he sees it as a tool now,” Swisher said on the daytime gabfest.
“Musk has X, and he has this. Now, what’s happening though, is all the really good people are leaving. Ruth Marcus just left, a terrific columnist, the head of P.R. just left, the head of communications, just yesterday, and they’re just losing subscriptions and it’s all due to Jeff’s things,” Swisher said.
“He likes to blame the reporters. They don’t like to change, and I would have agreed 10 years ago, but the reporters do understand that they need to change,” Swisher continued before Goldberg chimed in.
“So, maybe,” Goldberg said as Swisher asked if she wanted to be involved.
“I do,” Goldberg said. “Maybe the idea is… crowdfunding, because I think lots of people would love to be part of a newspaper that had something to say.”
Goldberg said she’s watched crowdfunding do “amazing things,” and feels it could help fix the Post.
“Or maybe it’s time for a new newspaper,” Goldberg said.
The Post did not immediately respond when asked for comment from Fox News Digital.
The “head of P.R.” that Swisher referred to was presumably CCO Kathy Baird, who reportedly announced her resignation this week. The Post has not confirmed her exit.
Bezos announced in February that the opinion section would be focused on writing “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”
Earlier this week, longtime Post columnist Ruth Marcus detailed her exit from the paper in a piece for The New Yorker, calling out the paper’s publisher for killing her column critical of Bezos.
“I stayed until I no longer could—until the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, issued an edict that the Post’s opinion offerings would henceforth concentrate on the twin pillars of ‘personal liberties and free markets,’ and, even more worrisome, that ‘viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.’ I stayed until the Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, killed a column I filed last week expressing my disagreement with this new direction. Lewis refused my request to meet,” Marcus wrote.
Marcus joined several staffers who have left the Post, including former columnist Jennifer Rubin, who was also very critical of the paper’s owner upon her departure.
Fox News Digital’s Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.
