At a closed-door meeting in 2021, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio declared, "If we take away these health care options, kids are going to die." The scrappy litigator uttered this dire proclamation in an address at the biennial conference of USPATH, the US branch of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH. Strangio has played a pivotal role in the transgender movement's general refusal to offer concessions on the chief principles animating its cause. Most central, and controversial, has been the demand that minors identifying as transgender have access to gender-transition treatments, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. Speaking to USPATH, Strangio entreated attendees to infuse legal and political advocacy into their work as doctors and mental-health providers. This battle cry was tempered with a foreboding vision
Average US mortgage rates climbed again for the fifth week in a row, making homebuying more expensive than it was just a few weeks ago, before the outbreak of war with Iran. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.46% this week, jumping from 6.38% the previous week and reaching the highest level in seven months, according to Freddie Mac. Read more
A Manhattan judge Tuesday denied Rudy Giuliani's motion to dismiss a $10 million lawsuit brought by a female aide who claims the former mayor subjected her to sexual assault, "alcohol-drenched rants" and withheld $2 million in wages, instead ordering the years-old case to proceed promptly to discovery. Read more
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Jerimiah Johnston: He completed his doctoral residency in Oxford in collaboration with Oxford Centre for Missions Studies and received his PhD from Middlesex University (UK).
The next steps in the US military campaign against Iran will commit nearly its entire inventory of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles, drawing them from stockpiles devoted to other regions. The order to pull the US$1.5 million weapon from Pacific stockpiles was issued at the end of March, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
A federal judge slapped down President Donald Trump's argument that he wasn't civilly liable for inciting violence at the deadly Capitol riot because his "Stop the Steal" speech was comparable to a rapper working up a crowd with divisive lyrics.
ICE arrested Salah Salem Sarsour (53), the head of Wisconsin's largest mosque, for throwing rocks at IDF soldiers and Molotov cocktails at their homes 30 years ago when he was a juvenile.
Another Political Prisoner
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the targeting of civilian infrastructure. "Striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender," he said in a statement posted on X, adding that such actions "convey the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in disarray". Read more
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The late Ted Bundy, one of the most famous and prolific serial killers in U.S. history, has claimed another victim. New DNA testing confirmed Bundy was responsible for the 1974 killing of a 17-year-old Utah girl who disappeared after leaving a party alone on Halloween night, the local sheriff's office said Wednesday. Laura Ann Aime was found dead on the side of a highway in American Fork Canyon about a month after her abduction. She was bound, beaten and without clothing. Read more
Whatever floats yer boat this weekend. Open thread for music...
Iran put anti Trump slogans in a missile video. Read more
Iran's president has written an open letter to America asking whether the Trump administration's war with his country is putting "America First." "Exactly which of the American people's interests are truly being served by this war?," Masoud Pezeshkian wrote in the letter, addressed "to the people of the United States of America" and posted on X late Wednesday local time, hours before US President Donald Trump gave his first national address on the Iran war. "Is America First' truly among the priorities of the US government today?" Pezeshkian asked. Read more
President Donald Trump has privately mused about firing his Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her with EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Frustrated by the backlash and anger in his base over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, Trump has asked people about replacing Bondi, who faces a deposition later this month on Capitol Hill related to the congressional investigation into the late sex trafficker, the sources said. He has also fumed that she hasn't investigated enough of his political opponents.
