Trump administration sues California over transgender athletes
In May, President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funds to the state if it did not comply with an executive order he signed Feb. 5. The California Interscholastic Federation sought to strike a compromise at the state high school track and field championships by enacting a rule change that allowed athletes assigned female at birth to receive medals based on where they would have finished if a transgender athlete had not competed.
That resulted in the awarding of two titles in the girls' high jump and long jump -- events in which transgender athlete AB Hernandez finished first.
The Trump administration filed a similar lawsuit in May against the state of Maine, alleging similar Title IX violations.
More than half the states have passed laws preventing transgender athletes from competing on female school sports teams, saying they are trying to prevent competitive advantages. However, the laws don't take into account someone's athletic ability or how far they are in transitioning to another gender.
Last week, the University of Pennsylvania agreed to prohibit transgender athletes from competing in women's sports and strip the record of former swimmer Lia Thomas as part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education.
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will weigh in on the issue. The court plans to review Idaho's and West Virginia's bans on transgender athletes joining female sports teams this fall, with a ruling likely coming next year.
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Scottish Sun
33 minutes ago
- Scottish Sun
Trump warns Putin he's ‘not done' with him and ‘trusts no one' after issuing ultimatum as Ukraine launches drone blitz
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) DONALD Trump has warned Vladimir Putin he's 'disappointed but not done' with the Russian tyrant, saying he 'trusts almost no-one.' Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said he still believes a peace deal with Russia is possible, but made clear his patience is wearing thin. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 4 Trump says his patience is wearing thin with Vladimir Putin Credit: Splash 4 Trump said he'll slap Russia with 'severe' tariffs if Putin doesn't strike a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days Credit: AFP 4 Ukraine keeps getting blitzed with Russian drone attacks Credit: Getty The remarks came just hours after he issued a 50-day ultimatum to Putin to end his assault on Ukraine or face sweeping tariffs and US-supplied long-range missiles that could reach Russian soil. 'I'm disappointed in him, but I'm not done with him. But I'm disappointed in him,' Trump told the BBC on Monday in a 20-minute phone interview. 'We're working it, Gary,' he said when pressed on how he plans to stop the bloodshed. 'We'll have a great conversation. I'll say: 'That's good, I think we're close to getting it done,' and then he'll knock down a building in Kyiv.' Trump's frustration with Putin boiled over on Monday as he warned of "very severe" 100 per cent secondary tariffs on Russia if it refuses to reach a ceasefire deal within 10 days. 'We're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days,' he said during a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte at the White House. In one of his biggest threats yet, Trump has ordered the deployment of an arsenal of "top-of-the-line" weapons to Nato for immediate delivery to Ukraine. The package includes long-range missiles capable of hitting Moscow, in what military experts say could shift the balance in the war. Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a decorated British Army commander, told The Sun: 'These weapons can strike Moscow – over 400 miles from the border. 'This will have both psychological as well as physical effects. People in Moscow will realise that they potentially could be targeted.' It comes as Ukraine launched a large-scale drone blitz across southwestern Russia, damaging homes, commercial sites, and injuring civilians in the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. In Voronezh, 12 drones were intercepted, but falling debris injured several people and damaged apartments and suburban houses, regional Governor Alexander Gusev said. 'Unfortunately, there were injuries,' he confirmed on Telegram. In Lipetsk, a drone crashed in an industrial area of Yelets, injuring one person, according to regional governor Igor Artamonov. Russia's defence ministry claimed 55 drones were shot down overnight across five regions and the Black Sea, including three in Lipetsk. The extent of the damage is still being assessed, and Ukraine has not commented on the strikes. Both Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians, but the war — now in its fourth year — has claimed thousands of civilian lives, most of them Ukrainian. More to follow... For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos. Like us on Facebook at TheSunUS and follow us on X at @TheUSSun
The Sun
39 minutes ago
- The Sun
Trump warns Putin he's ‘not done' with him and ‘trusts no one' after issuing ultimatum as Ukraine launches drone blitz
DONALD Trump has warned Vladimir Putin he's 'disappointed but not done' with the Russian tyrant, saying he 'trusts almost no-one.' Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said he still believes a peace deal with Russia is possible, but made clear his patience is wearing thin. 4 4 4 The remarks came just hours after he issued a 50-day ultimatum to Putin to end his assault on Ukraine or face sweeping tariffs and US-supplied long-range missiles that could reach Russian soil. 'I'm disappointed in him, but I'm not done with him. But I'm disappointed in him,' Trump told the BBC on Monday in a 20-minute phone interview. 'We're working it, Gary,' he said when pressed on how he plans to stop the bloodshed. 'We'll have a great conversation. I'll say: 'That's good, I think we're close to getting it done,' and then he'll knock down a building in Kyiv.' Trump's frustration with Putin boiled over on Monday as he warned of "very severe" 100 per cent secondary tariffs on Russia if it refuses to reach a ceasefire deal within 10 days. 'We're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days,' he said during a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte at the White House. In one of his biggest threats yet, Trump has ordered the deployment of an arsenal of "top-of-the-line" weapons to Nato for immediate delivery to Ukraine. The package includes long-range missiles capable of hitting Moscow, in what military experts say could shift the balance in the war. It comes as Ukraine launched a large-scale drone blitz across southwestern Russia, damaging homes, commercial sites, and injuring civilians in the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. In Voronezh, 12 drones were intercepted, but falling debris injured several people and damaged apartments and suburban houses, regional Governor Alexander Gusev said. 'Unfortunately, there were injuries,' he confirmed on Telegram. In Lipetsk, a drone crashed in an industrial area of Yelets, injuring one person, according to regional governor Igor Artamonov. Russia's defence ministry claimed 55 drones were shot down overnight across five regions and the Black Sea, including three in Lipetsk. The extent of the damage is still being assessed, and Ukraine has not commented on the strikes. Both Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians, but the war — now in its fourth year — has claimed thousands of civilian lives, most of them Ukrainian. . 4
New Statesman
an hour ago
- New Statesman
Trump is serious about getting tough on Putin. No, really.
Photo byDonald Trump appears, belatedly, to be reaching the conclusion that Vladimir Putin cannot be entirely trusted. 'We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,' he remarked during a cabinet meeting last week (8 July). 'He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.' He expanded on that theme during a meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on 14 July, where the US president was expected to deliver a 'major announcement' on Russia. After speaking to Putin on the phone, he said, 'I always hang up and say, well that was a nice phone call, and then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and I say, 'strange.' And after that happens three or four times, you say, 'the talk doesn't mean anything.'' Even the first lady, Melania Trump, had noted the discrepancy between his 'lovely' phone conversations with Putin and the devastating war he is waging against Ukraine. 'I go home, I tell the first lady, 'you know I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation,'' Trump recounted. 'She said, 'oh, really? Another city was just hit.'' Since returning to power in January – whereupon he had promised to end the war within 24 hours – Trump had believed a peace deal with Putin was within reach 'about four times,' he opined, 'but it just keeps going on and on and on.' With this pattern so clearly established and Putin so demonstrably uninterested in serious peace talks, there was growing anticipation in Washington that Trump was about to signal a radically new approach. Perhaps the major announcement would turn out to be an unequivocal declaration of support for Ukraine and a commitment to pass the bipartisan sanctions package that is currently gathering momentum in the senate and would impose a 500 percent tariff on countries that buy Russian oil and uranium (such as China and India). Fool Trump four times, one might think, and, to quote George W. Bush, 'you can't get fooled again.' To be fair, Trump did announce that Ukraine would now receive the air defence systems and other crucial weaponry that Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly requested – and which his own administration had previously suspended – which is unequivocally good news for Kyiv. Although he was characteristically vague on the details of what, exactly, would be sent. 'Everything. It's Patriots [the US-made missile defence system]. It's all of them,' Trump said as Rutte nodded along encouragingly. The one detail he did want to stress was that the US would not be paying for them. Instead, they would be sending the weapons to Nato, where 'rich' European countries would apparently foot the bill, and then send the weapons on to Ukraine. 'This is really big,' Rutte interjected, demonstrating, once again, his fluency in Trumpian rhetoric and his apparent comfort with public acts of self-abasement in an attempt to secure the US president's support for European security. (During their previous meeting, Rutte referred to Trump as 'Daddy.') 'This is Europeans stepping up.' If he was Putin, Rutte suggested, he would now be left with little choice but to take these negotiations 'more seriously.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Alas, this is an unlikely outcome. Far from offering a stirring invocation of the need for Ukraine to prevail and Washington's unending commitment to standing with Europe against Russian aggression, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from the war. 'This is a Biden war. This is a Democrat war,' he said. 'Not a Republican or Trump war.' 'This is not Trump's,' he stressed again as he answered reporters' questions. 'We're here to get it finished and stopped.' Twice, he pointed out, 'they're not Americans dying,' noting that he and 'JD [Vance]' have a 'problem' with the war, which they had both campaigned on a promise to bring to an expedited end. 'There are no winners here,' Trump concluded, as though he was surveying a bad real estate deal. 'This is a loser.' His comments did not exactly signal robust support. As for the senate's sanctions package, which is being touted in DC as a 'sledgehammer' that will enable Trump to end the conflict, the president himself sounded noncommittal, offering only that it was 'good that they're doing it.' Instead, he promised to impose 'very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days.' Those tariffs would be set 'at about 100 percent,' Trump said, calling them 'secondary tariffs' but offering no further details as to what this meant. (Secondary sanctions are generally imposed on third countries trading with a targeted nation, so this could mean imposing 100 percent tariffs on US imports from countries that trade with Russia, but it is not clear.) Asked how much further he was prepared to go if Putin continued to escalate his attacks on Ukraine, which has been subjected in recent weeks to the heaviest aerial bombardment since the start of the war as the Russian military, Trump responded: 'Don't ask me a question like that.' For all the dramatic billing, the problem with Trump's latest strategy is that it is essentially the same strategy that he has already tried. He is threatening Putin with very serious consequences if he doesn't end the war, while signalling that he, personally, and the US in general, has no real interest in that war beyond ensuring that 'we get it finished.' Agreeing to continue supplying Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself, or at least to sell those weapons to Nato, is better than the alternative for Kyiv and allows the Ukrainian military to keep fighting, but it is not the same as committing meaningful funds and political capital to ensure Ukraine's survival against the Russian onslaught and European security. Trump has the votes to pass a massive new military aid package in congress immediately if he so desires. Evidently, he does not. There is no doubt that Trump's tone on Putin has decidedly soured in recent days. Perhaps he is genuinely reconsidering his previously admiring assessment of the Russian president, and a more consequential policy shift will eventually follow. But for now, he is choosing to respond to Putin's habitual obfuscation and clear track record of stringing him along by giving him another chance – this time another 50 days – to mend his ways, and warning that this time is really serious about getting tough. Perhaps the fifth time will turn out to be the charm, and Putin will now be persuaded to enter serious negotiations and call an end to his assault. But it is more likely that he will interpret Trump's announcement as giving him another 50 days to bombard Ukraine and grind forward on the battlefield, where he believes the Russian military has the upper hand, albeit at a glacial pace and tremendous cost. Tellingly, the Russian stock market rose after Trump's announcement. Moscow, it seems, was bracing for much worse. [See also: Putin's endgame] Related
