The sea cucumber has been found to naturally produce a sugary compound that inhibits an enzyme instrumental in facilitating cancer growth, according to a new study. The next step is to find a method for producing the marine-derived anticancer compound in large quantities.
Used for centuries in traditional medicines, particularly in Asia, sea cucumbers are rich in bioactive compounds with potential medicinal benefits. In 2023, we reported that the marine creatures contained key ingredients that could delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.
Now, new research, led by the University of Mississippi (UM), has found that another of the sea cucumber’s unique natural compounds blocks an enzyme that’s instrumental in facilitating cancer growth.
“Marine life produces compounds with unique structures that are often rare or not found in terrestrial vertebrates,” said the study’s lead author, Marwa Farrag, a PhD candidate in UM’s Department of Biomolecular Science and an assistant lecturer in the Faculty of Pharmacy at Assiut University, Egypt. “And so, the sugar compounds in sea cucumbers are unique. They aren’t commonly seen in other organisms. That’s why they’re worth studying.”
The surface of nearly all human cells is covered in glycans, a dense network of hair-like projections of complex carbohydrate molecules that are crucial to cell-cell communication and immune responses. Modified or abnormally expressed glycans have been linked to cancer growth and spread, or metastasis. An enzyme called heparan-6-O-endosulfatase 2, otherwise known as Sulf-2, has been found to modify glycans and, for that reason, has been implicated in cancer progression.
“The cells in our body are essentially covered in ‘forests’ of glycans,” said Vitor Pomin, corresponding author and an Associate Professor of Pharmacognosy at UM, which is the scientific study of medicinal drugs obtained from natural sources such as plants, animals, and minerals. “And enzymes change the function of this forest – essentially prunes the leaves of that forest. If we can inhibit that enzyme, theoretically, we are fighting against the spread of cancer.”
Previous studies have also investigated the pharmacological activities of a polysaccharide found in the sea cucumber species Holothuria floridana called fucosylated chondroitin sulfate (HfFucCS). Polysaccharides are complex carbohydrates made of long chains of simple sugar molecules, or monosaccharides. In the present study, the researchers examined the interaction between HfFucCS and the Sulf-2 enzyme and, using computer modeling and lab testing, confirmed that HfFucCS inhibited Sulf-2.
Microscopic image of cells showing the hair-like glycans on their surface
GlyTech Inc
“We were able to compare what we generated experimentally with what the simulation predicted, and they were consistent,” said co-author Robert Doerksen, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Research Professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UM. “That gives us more confidence in the results.”
Importantly, the researchers found that HfFucCS didn’t interfere with blood clotting, like some Sulf-2-targeting drugs do. Normally, Sulf-2 has a pro-clotting effect, making clot formation in the body slightly more likely. When Sulf-2 is blocked, there’s usually an increase in anticoagulant, or anti-clotting, activity.
“As you can imagine, if you are treating a patient with a molecule that inhibits blood coagulation, then one of the adverse effects that can be pretty devastating is uncontrolled bleeding,” said Joshua Sharp, UM Associate Professor of Pharmacology and another of the study’s co-authors. “So, it’s very promising that this particular molecule that we’re working on doesn’t have that effect.”
There are also benefits to using a natural source such as the sea cucumber, the researchers said.
“Some of these drugs we have been using for 100 years, but we’re still isolating them from pigs because chemically synthesizing it would be very, very difficult and expensive,” Sharp said. “That’s why a natural source is really a preferred way to get at these carbohydrate-based drugs.”
“It’s more beneficial and a cleaner resource,” added Pomin. “The marine environment has many advantages compared to more traditional resources.”
However, there is not an unlimited supply of the marine creatures, which are a popular food source throughout Asia. This means the researchers will need to devise a method for chemically producing the all-important sugar compound, HfFucCS.
“One of the problems in developing this as a drug would be the low yield, because you can’t get tons and tons of sea cucumbers,” Pomin said. “So, we have to have a chemical route, and when we’ve developed that, we can begin applying this [compound] to animal models.”
The study was published in the journal Glycobiology.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday said the Trump administration did not have to comply for now with a judge’s order to give due process to scores of Venezuelan immigrants who were deported to El Salvador under a wartime law.
The ruling, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, came one day before the administration was supposed to outline for a lower-court judge how to allow nearly 140 deported Venezuelans to challenge their expulsion. The men, accused of being members of a violent street gang called Tren de Aragua, are being held in a maximum-security Salvadoran prison.
The White House deported the men on March 15 on flights from a detention center in Texas, using a powerful but rarely invoked statute called the Alien Enemies Act. The law, which has been used on only three other occasions in U.S. history, is meant to be used in times of declared war or during an invasion by a foreign nation.
The ruling, by a three-judge panel of the appeals court, was not a final decision on the merits in the case, but simply an administrative pause to give the appellate judges more time to consider the validity of the underlying order.
The fight over the plight of the Venezuelan immigrants is merely one of the many bitter battles that have pitted courts across the country against an administration that is aggressively seeking to deport as many as immigrants as possible through methods that have repeatedly strained the boundaries of the law. Time and again, judges have settled on a similar bottom line, saying that the immigrants must be afforded basic due process rights before being expelled from the country.
The proceeding, which has been unfolding in front of Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge in Federal District Court in Washington, was one of the first deportation cases to reach the courts and remains one of the hardest fought. Judge Boasberg tried to stop the deportation flights carrying the Venezuelans shortly after they took off, but the administration went ahead anyway, prompting him to threaten Trump officials with contempt proceedings.
Ever since the men landed in El Salvador, their lawyers have been seeking another order to bring them back to the United States. And last week, Judge Boasberg gave them some of what they wanted, directing Trump officials to give the men the due process they were denied, but leaving it up to the administration to offer an initial plan about how to carry out his instructions.
Instead of doing so by their Wednesday deadline, lawyers for the Justice Department asked both the appeals court and Judge Boasberg himself to put everything on hold as they challenged his underlying instructions. They claimed he lacked the jurisdiction to tell the U.S. government what to do with men in the custody of a foreign nation, saying that his original order interfered “with the president’s removal of dangerous criminal aliens from the United States.”
The Supreme Court has already weighed in on the case, ruling in early April that the Venezuelan men had to be afforded the opportunity to contest their deportations, but only in the place where they were being held and only through a legal process known as a writ of habeas corpus. A habeas writ allows defendants to emerge from custody and go to court to challenge their detention.
But the Supreme Court’s decision raised a crucial question: Who, under the law, has custody over the Venezuelan men?
Their lawyers claimed that the Trump administration had what is known as “constructive custody” over them because they were being held in El Salvador under an agreement between the White House and the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele.
The Justice Department disagreed, arguing that the men were in the sole custody of El Salvador and were therefore beyond the reach of orders issued by American federal judges.
In his order last week, Judge Boasberg sided with the department, saying that he could not fully refute the administration’s claims, even while expressing skepticism that the claims were true. Still, he used a different rationale to order the White House to figure out a way to give the Venezuelans a way to seek relief, saying that the Constitution demanded they be provided with some sort of due process.
It was that rationale with which the Justice Department took issue in its request to the appeals court to put the case on hold. Lawyers for the department assailed it as “unprecedented, baseless and constitutionally offensive.”
“The district court’s increasingly fantastical injunctions continue to threaten serious harm to the government’s national-security and foreign-affairs interests,” the lawyers wrote.
The case in front of Judge Boasberg was playing out as a related matter unfolded in a separate federal appeals court that is considering the broader question of whether President Trump has been using the Alien Enemies Act lawfully in the first place. That case is scheduled to have oral argument in New Orleans at the end of the month.
These are the key events on day 1,203 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here’s where things stand on Wednesday, June 11:
Fighting
Russia launched a large-scale drone-and-missile assault on Ukraine, killing one person in Kyiv and two in the southern port city of Odesa. At least 13 people were injured.
A Ukrainian drone attack on a petrol station in the Russian city of Belgorod killed one person and injured four others, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s attack on Kyiv was “one of the biggest” in the three-year-old war. It caused several fires and damaged buildings, including St Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage landmark.
In northeastern Ukraine, the governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, said the region’s defence council decided to order the mandatory evacuation of seven villages.
The Ukrainian military said that Russia launched 315 drones and seven missiles at Ukrainian cities in total. Ukrainian air defenders shot down 213 drones, two ballistic missiles and two cruise missiles, the military said.
Ukrainian forces also engaged in 167 firefights with Russian troops across multiple fronts on Tuesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said that air defence units shot down 109 Ukrainian drones from Monday night into Tuesday.
Prisoner exchange
The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed a “second group of Russian servicemen was returned from the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime” after a prisoner exchange took place on Monday. They will now undergo “treatment and rehabilitation”, the ministry said.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine also received prisoners in the “first stage of the return of our injured and severely wounded warriors from Russian captivity”.
“The exchanges are to continue,” Zelenskyy added. Both sides are expected to release more than 1,000 prisoners each, under an agreement struck at talks in Istanbul, Turkiye, last week.
Ukrainian families of missing soldiers said they are anxiously awaiting information as the exchanges continue.
Politics and diplomacy
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz denounced Russian “terror against the civilian population” of Ukraine after Moscow’s heavy drone and missile strikes.
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told lawmakers that the US will reduce military aid to Ukraine in the upcoming defence budget.
“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict. We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe,” Hegseth said.
The European Commission proposed an 18th package of sanctions against Russia, targeting its oil revenues, banks and weapons industry.
Russian authorities have arrested opposition politician Lev Shlosberg, and charged him with discrediting the Russian army after he called the war on Ukraine a game of “bloody chess”.
Finnish Minister of Defence Antti Hakkanen alleged that a Russian military aircraft violated Finland’s airspace, prompting an investigation by the Finnish Border Guard.
Snapchat, long-known as a featherweight in the league of Big Tech giants, is hoping to best opponents Meta, Google and Apple by releasing its new augmented reality AI-enabled smart glasses months, maybe even years, before the big guys.
Speaking at a conference on Tuesday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the company would release a new version of its camera-equipped glasses next year that will incorporate an interactive, AI-enhanced digital screen within the lens. The 2026 release date would be ahead of Meta, which plans to release its AR “Orion” glasses in 2027, while Google has not attached a date to its Android XR glasses.
“The tiny smartphone limited our imagination,” Spiegel said in his keynote at the Augmented World Expo conference in Long Beach, Calif. “It’s clear that today’s devices and user interfaces are woefully inadequate to realize the full potential of AI.”
The new “Snapchat Specs” will be lightweight and AI-enhanced, Snap said. They will allow users to look at objects in the real world and leverage AI to access information, such as translating ingredients on a label from foreign languages. The glasses will also allow users to interact with the objects on the lens, Snap said, citing examples like playing video games with their eyeballs.
The company did not share photos of the Specs frames or provide information on pricing. As part of the Specs announcement, Snapchat shared that operating system partnerships with OpenAI and Google Gemini will extend into experiences for the glasses.
If Snap follows through on the promise of 2026 launch, it would be the first Big Tech company to market with augmented reality glasses for mainstream consumers, claiming an early lead in the race to create the successor to the smartphone—a competition involving everyone from Meta, Google, and Apple, to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which recently announced a partnership with former Apple design boss Jony Ive.
A pioneer in the glasses form factor, Snap made waves with the release of its “Spectacles” in 2016. The funky looking glasses were equipped with a camera that allowed users to post photos and short video clips directly to their Snapchat feed. But in recent years, Snap’s Spectacles have been eclipsed by Meta, which partnered with EssilorLuxottica to release Ray-Ban smart glasses. Though Meta hasn’t shared financials around its Ray-Ban glasses, EssilorLuxottica noted that the companies have sold over 2 billion glasses since their 2023 debut. Luxottica plans to increase products of the co-branded glasses to 10 million units by 2026, suggesting that the companies are pleased with the results and potential of the glasses.
That said, Meta’s glasses do not have AR capabilities; rather, the glasses have audio-based AI features as well as photo and video capability. Meta has said it will release its Orion AR glasses in 2027, with technology that will allow users to scan their Threads feeds with eye tracking hardware.
Other tech giants have glasses in their sights, too. At its IO developer’s conference in May, Google announced that it would join the smart glasses market by partnering with Warby Parker. And Apple, whose $3,500 VisionPro headset has failed to catch on with consumers, is reported to release smart glasses next year that mimic the current version of Meta’s Ray Bans, while working on more advanced AR glasses that are still years away, according to Bloomberg.
The Specs announcement follows a turbulent financial period for Snapchat. After years of worrisome financials, Snapchat seems to have stabilized and increased free cash flow in the most recent quarter. The glasses are partially a revenue diversification effort as the company is propagated by ads to its social network.
Still, Snapchat did not share what the glasses will cost consumers. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, which do not have AR capabilities, cost between $239 and $303 so it’s reasonable to assume the Specs’ prices will be steeper due to the hardware requirements.
The style and comfort of the glasses are also likely to be critical, with consumers having repeatedly demonstrated an aversion to bulky- or geeky-looking smart glasses and headsets. With its 2026 launch date, Snap has thrust itself back into the conversation, but success will rest on whether it can produce a product consumers actually want to wear.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) and Bezalel Smotrich are key members of PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition
The UK has sanctioned two far-right Israeli ministers over “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities” in the occupied West Bank.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich will both be banned from entering the UK and will have any assets in the UK frozen as part of the measures announced by the foreign secretary.
David Lammy said Finance Minister Smotrich and National Security Minister Ben-Gvir had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”.
In response, Israel said: “It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures.”
The sanctions are part of a joint move by the UK, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand announced on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the move, writing on X: “These sanctions do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war”.
He urged the nations to reverse the sanctions, adding that the US “stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel.”
The US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, joined Rubio’s condemnation, describing the move as a “shocking decision” in an interview with the BBC.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have also been criticised for their stance on the war in Gaza. Both ministers oppose allowing aid into the Strip and have called for Palestinians there to be resettled outside the territory.
The Foreign Office said: “As Palestinian communities in the West Bank continue to suffer from severe acts of violence by extremist Israeli settlers which also undermine a future Palestinian state, the UK has joined Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in stepping up the international response.”
After the announcement, Lammy said: “These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now – to hold those responsible to account.
“We will strive to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of the remaining hostages by Hamas which can have no future role in the governance of Gaza, a surge in aid and a path to a two-state solution.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the cabinet would meet next week to respond to what he called an “unacceptable decision”.
The Foreign Office added that the five nations are “clear that the rising violence and intimidation by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities in the West Bank must stop”.
In a statement it said the sanctions against the ministers “cannot be seen in isolation from events in Gaza where Israel must uphold International Humanitarian Law”.
The ministers lead ultra-nationalist parties in the governing coalition, which holds an eight-seat majority in parliament. The support of Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, which holds six seats, and Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, which holds seven seats, is crucial to the government’s survival.
Speaking at the inauguration of a new settlement in the West Bank, Smotrich said he felt “contempt” towards the UK’s move.
“Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we cannot do it again,” he said. “We are determined, God willing, to continue building.”
The minister was alluding to the period when Britain governed Palestine and imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration, most significantly from the late 1930s to late 1940s.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.
The vast majority of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law – a position supported by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year – although Israel disputes this.
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Foreign Office Minister Hamish Falconer said that 2024 had seen the “worst settler violence” in the West Bank in the past two decades and this year was “on track to be just as violent”.
Commenting on the sanctions imposed on the two ministers, Falconer said they were “responsible for inciting settler violence” in the West Bank which has “led to the deaths of Palestinian civilians and the displacement of whole towns and villages”.
Falconer said Smotrich and Ben-Gvir had continued their “appalling” rhetoric despite warnings from the UK government, and so action was taken.
The possibility of sanctioning these two ministers has long been in the pipeline.
In October, Lord Cameron said he had planned to sanction the pair, when he was foreign secretary from 2023-24, as a way of putting pressure on Israel.
The UK’s decision reflects growing popular and parliamentary pressure to take further action against the Israeli government for its operations both in Gaza and the West Bank.
It also comes after a steady escalation of pressure by the UK and other allies.
Last month the leaders of Britain, France and Canada issued a joint statement saying that Israel was at risk of breaking international law. The UK also broke off trade talks with Israel.
In the Commons last month, Lammy described remarks by Smotrich about “cleansing” Gaza of Palestinians as “monstrous” and “dangerous” extremism.
Timeline of UK-Israel tensions
19 May: UK, France and Canada denounce expanded Israeli offensive on Gaza and continuing blockade, warn of “concrete” response; Israeli PM calls move “huge prize” for Hamas
20 May: UK suspends free trade talks with Israel, sanctions settlers, and summons Israel’s ambassador; Israel foreign ministry calls move “regrettable”
10 June: UK sanctions Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir for advocating forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza; Israel’s foreign minister calls move “outrageous”
Conservative shadow home secretary Dame Priti Patel did not directly comment on the sanctions, but said: “We have been clear that the British government must leverage its influence at every opportunity to ensure the remaining hostages [held by Hamas] are released, that aid continues to reach those who need it, and a sustainable end to the conflict is achieved.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey welcomed the sanctions, but said it was “disappointing” that the Conservative government and Labour “took so long to act”.
It is 20 months since Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led cross-border attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 54,927 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
HYBE wrapped its Seoul headquarters with “We Are Back” banners and BTS logos this week, as all seven members of the K-pop group are set to complete their mandatory military service this month.
RM and V were discharged from the military on Tuesday (June 10) in Chuncheon City, South Korea, after joining in December 2023, according to multiple news outlets out of South Korea and overseas.
A photo of both artists was posted on BTS’s social media shortly after they were discharged.
BTS’s oldest member, Jin, was discharged in June 2024, while J-Hope finished his service in October 2024. Meanwhile, Jimin and Jung Kook are reportedly set to complete their service on Wednesday (June 11).
HYBE’s stock has rallied in recent days since news of BTS’s imminent comeback emerged. The company’s shares jumped 2% in Seoul on Tuesday to KRW 309,000 ($226), marking a five-day growth streak. It also marked the highest level since April 2022. Year-to-date, the stock is up 57%.
The building decorations, unveiled Monday and running through June 29, coincide with BTS’s 12th anniversary celebration on Friday (June 13), according to Korea JoongAng Daily.
After this week, Suga remains the only member still serving, the report said. He is scheduled for discharge on June 21. Meanwhile, Jin and J-Hope, who returned to civilian life in 2024, have since released solo projects while maintaining limited public appearances.
Jin recently released his second solo album, titled Echo,on May 16. He partnered with TikTok last month for a campaign introducing multiple in-app experiences on the platform. In November last year, Jin also partnered with the ByteDance-owned platform on a multimedia campaign in support of his first solo album, Happy.
Jimin also dropped two albums while BTS was in hiatus. He released Face in March 2023 and Muse in July 2024. Jimin also teamed up with TikTok on an in-app hub to promote Muse last year.
The seven-member K-pop group, HYBE’s biggest earner, went on hiatus in 2022 due to compulsory military service in their home country of South Korea.
At the time, the band said they would be taking a break to pursue solo projects, but added that they will also remain “active as a group.”
That announcement rattled investors, and the company’s shares fell by around 25% that day, wiping around $1.5 billion from HYBE’s market cap value in the process.
In addition to being HYBE’s top revenue generator, the IFPI said BTS were also the world’s biggest recorded music artists in 2021 and 2020.
With the group’s absence, HYBE’s operating profit dropped37.5% YoYto KRW 184.82 billion ($135.55 million) in FY 2024, which the company attributed to, among other factors, “BTS‘ temporary break.”
Speaking with analysts on the company’s earnings call in February, HYBE’s Chief Financial Officer Kyung-Jun Lee said, HYBE’s “revenue mix by artists has changed with the absence of BTS and [the] debut of new groups.”
At the time, the executive hinted that BTS’s comeback is in sight.
News of BTS’s return overshadowed the recent scandal at HYBE’s offices in Seoul, which were raided by South Korean authorities over a week ago as part of an investigation into alleged insider trading by a former executive.
Separately, in late May, it was reported that the South Korean financial watchdog, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), is ramping up an investigation into HYBE’s Chairman Bang Si-hyukover allegations surrounding agreements supposedly made with certain investors and private equity funds ahead of the company’s IPO in 2020.
Gary Taylor, the current head coach of Cavalier Aquatics and an associate head coach on the staff at the University of Virginia, is currently serving a two-year probation period after admitting to emotional abuse of athletes.
According to Chris Graham of the Augustana Free Press, Taylor received the two-year probation from the U.S. Center for SafeSport after an investigation concluded with him admitting to emotional misconduct while coaching swimmers from 2015 until 2022 at NC State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics.
SafeSport reportedly made the Notice of Decision on March 17 and shared its findings with Piedmont Family YMCA (the non-profit that oversees Cavalier Aquatics) officials and UVA head coach Todd DeSorbo at that time.
During the two-year probation period, a subsequent complaint against Taylor will likely lead to more severe sanctions, such as suspension or permanent ineligibility.
Taylor, who worked with DeSorbo as an assistant at NC State, spent six seasons as an assistant with the Wolfpack until 2018 before being hired to be the head coach of Auburn. After a three-year stint with the Tigers, he was hired as the head coach of Cavalier Aquatics in 2021.
According to the Augustana Free Press, complaints of abusive behavior by Taylor towards his swimmers started surfacing shortly after he arrived at Cavalier Aquatics. It’s important to note that DeSorbo’s wife, Lauren Suggs, is a board member at the Piedmont Family YMCA, and that Taylor went on to marry the CEO of the Piedmont Family YMCA, Jessica Taylor (formerly Jessica Maslaney).
Given that context, the complaints made against Taylor were never addressed by YMCA leadership, according to the Augustana Free Press.
As the complaints mounted, parents reportedly counted 31 of 62 swimmers in the senior group left Cavalier Aquatics during Taylor’s first year at the helm.
After attempts to be heard hadn’t made much progress, one parent reportedly requested a confidential meeting with Bob Bremer, the chair of the Piedmont Family YMCA Board at the time, and presented him with a letter detailing numerous concerns from a group of parents highlighting issues of emotional abuse from Taylor.
Bremer reportedly forwarded the letter to Jessica Taylor (Maslaney at the time), who wrote back to the parent challenging the credibility of the letter:
“There are a number of statements in the letter that are false and represent accusations that could be damaging to personal and professional careers and reputations. We will take all appropriate actions to support any YMCA Employee who is inappropriately and unfairly maligned or disrespected, regardless of the forum.
Taylor continued: “What started as a disappointment in a group placement has escalated into unsubstantiated and damaging accusations against our staff, violates our Parent Code of Conduct and will not continue to be tolerated.”
After attempts to be heard by YMCA leadership failed, the Augustana Free Press reports that one parent began reaching out to Auburn swimmers who had trained under Taylor, wondering if this was a pattern of behavior, and this was what ultimately led to the SafeSport investigation into his conduct.
A text message sent from one longtime member of Cavalier Aquatics to Taylor telling him she was quitting the team was reported by the Augustana Free Press:
“The way that you speak to some of your swimmers is extremely degrading. … I feel like you feel the need to treat me like I am a child, which is something I am not.
“Basically telling us that we weren’t good enough is unacceptable. It seems like you have no concern for your swimmers’ lives and assume that swimming is their highest priority, which for some of them, it might be. I think you fail to realize that your swimmers have lives outside of club swimming.”
Graham of the Augustana Free Press goes on to outline a series of complaints from Auburn swimmers he was given access to, with allegations including:
Taylor made a swimmer feel guilty about asking for a mental health break, saying he “never once asked if I was okay or anything and made me feel guilty for my mental health and trying to take care of it.” They also said: “Gary has also mentioned on a number of occasions that he prides himself on being able to make girls cry very easily.”
One swimmer had an asthma attack during dryland, and Taylor advised a trainer, “Don’t help her, she’s fine.” The swimmer later lost their spot on the team, and said she is “terrified for the girls that are still being coached by him and will have to put up with his verbal abuse.”
The same swimmer wrote: “I don’t think that a lot of girls would be able to overcome some of the things that he said to me. I think that he will continue to tear people down again and again, all from things that he has made up in his head. I wish I could count on two hands the amount of people that have told me that Gary has made them feel so small and worthless. He will continue to tarnish athletes’ confidence until change happens.”
One swimmer wrote about how Taylor “tarnished athletes’ confidence” with the example of how he gave out a children’s book called The Pout Pout Fish “to the person with the worst attitude” at the end of the week. “I unfortunately got the book,” the swimmer wrote. “I don’t know if it does much giving a 20-year-old a children’s book about attitudes, but it certainly made me angry and questioned the coach’s ability to lead and teach.”
They said of Taylor and his staff: “They truly only care about swimming, not even the swimmer, but solely their performance, and it’s ruining people from the inside out,” the same swimmer wrote, noting that they had been diagnosed with ADHD, seasonal depression and anxiety caused by the stress endured from Taylor and his staff. “I never in a million years would’ve thought I’d be having to decide if I wanted to take anti-depressants or question if I wanted to continue doing the sport I love. I’ve been scared, I’ve had numerous anxiety attacks and days where I just lay in bed and cry thinking about how much different I thought my college swimming experience should be. But enough is enough, and I’m done being scared of him and being scared to express my emotions.”
Another swimmer felt pride for representing Auburn after being recruited by the former head coach Brett Hawke, and was committed to finishing out her career with the Tigers, but when Taylor arrived, she “dreamed of my final practice, final race, and most importantly final interaction with Gary.”
“He killed my love for the sport. Getting to go to practice and see my teammates used to be the highlight of my day, but having to go interact with Gary made me absolutely dread going to practice every day. I got to the point that I had to go see a therapist every week or two just to be able to mentally survive week to week.”
Another swimmer detailed how, on a recruiting phone call, she had mentioned how she was excited to compete for something bigger than herself and be a part of the Auburn legacy. Taylor then used that against her, telling her and the rest of the team “about how we do not deserve to say or be a part of Auburn’s legacy because we did not have the winning record or accomplishments they did.”
“At one point, he made me stand up in front of everyone and made an example out of me as to why we shouldn’t say the word ‘legacy’ in that connotation. He embarrassed me so much, taken this was the first time he said anything to me in person. After that meeting, he made comments and gestures to the original conversation we had multiple times the rest of the year, and again multiple times my sophomore year.”
One team captain said she regretted accepting the leadership role on the team because of the way Taylor “took to berating and ridiculing captains in meetings.”
“’I do not matter, I am such a failure, I am messing up everyone’s season, It would be better for everyone if I just left.’ These were my thoughts walking out of his office,” the swimmer wrote. “I would sit in my car in the colosseum parking lot and cry, praying no one I knew would walk by. Sometimes I wouldn’t even make it out of the elevator before the tears started.”
One swimmer pushed back against Taylor’s assertion that a lack of confidence was hampering her performance in the pool, to which he responded by asking her if she was on her period. “That comment forced me to see the sports psych more often and to have a one-on-one with Gary, with another coach monitoring our conversation. The meeting went poorly, and our relationship was very toxic,” the swimmer wrote, adding that she “ended up becoming clinically depressed and became a harm to myself.” Taylor put the swimmer in a different group after she told him about mental health difficulties.
“I feel like an outcast, unwanted, a failure, and a constant reminder to him of his failure,” the swimmer wrote. “My main fear in telling him about my mental health struggles was the treatment and stigma that comes with it, which he promised he wouldn’t judge. Instead, his decision for not trusting me or considering me for captain was my mental instability and my depression I expressed the year I swam with him. He holds my struggle over my head and makes me feel like an unwanted monster. “Gary’s inflexibility, ego, sexism and overall inappropriate comments have been super harmful towards me,” the swimmer wrote. “I am a huge believer that college sports are a business, and I was always prepared to have a difficult boss. I was never prepared to be harassed and mistreated in this way.”
When the University of Virginia hired Taylor in May 2024, a Cavalier Aquatics parent reportedly warned UVA Athletic Director Carla Williams that the school should “start preparing for some blowback” due to the ongoing investigation into Taylor’s conduct.
After providing an update on the investigation in September, the parent was told by Williams that all of their future communication related to the investigation would be forwarded to the University’s Office of the General Counsel.
During Taylor’s first season as an associate head coach with the Cavaliers, the women’s team continued to thrive, winning their fifth consecutive NCAA Championship title and sixth straight ACC crown, while the men’s program placed 32nd at NCAAs and 8th at ACCs.
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