Thursday morning news, April 17, 2025

Department of Justice Maine lawsuit over women's sports » The Justice Department is suing the state of Maine’s Department of Education for refusing to keep biological men out of women’s school sports.

Attorney General Pam Bondi:

BONDI:  We are seeking an injunction to get them to stop this, stop what they're doing. That's pretty simple and we are seeking to have the titles returned to the young women who rightfully won these sports.

She’s also seeking to halt federal funding, perhaps even retroactively.

The lawsuit says Maine's policies deprive girl athletes of fair competition, deny them equal athletic opportunities and put them at greater risk both physically and psychologically.

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon told reporters:

MCMAHON:  We wanna make sure that if you open women's sports or intimate facilities to males, you expose yourself to federal rights. Federal civil rights investigations. 

State officials in Maine argue that state law permits student athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity and assert that the federal government is overstepping its authority.

UK women definition ruling » Meantime, across the Atlantic the United Kingdom’s highest court says it’s not hard to define what a woman is. The court unanimously ruled that for all legal purposes, a woman is a biological female.

The judges found that men who identify as transgender do have some protections against discrimination. But they do not have the same protections as women under Britain’s 2010 Equality Act.

Susan Smith is with a group called For Women Scotland.

SMITH: Today, the judges have said what we always believed to be the case that women are protected by their biological sex. That sex is real. And that women can now feel safe, that services and spaces designated for women are for women.

The organization in 2022 challenged a law passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2018 that included transgender men in its definition of a woman.

That law required at least 50% of all public board seats to be held by women. Activists said the law could potentially allow biological men to occupy seats for women and jeopardized other single-sex spaces.

Garcia deportation » The Trump administration is pushing back over criticism of its deportation of a man from El Salvador.

The case involving 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia has sparked a legal, and now a political fight.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador where Garcia is now locked up.

VAN HOLLEN:  As I've said before, the goal of my visit is to talk to people here about the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The Salvadoran government denied him a meeting with Garcia.

An immigration judge in 20-19 shielded Garcia from deportation. And the administration said a clerical error landed him on a plane loaded with gang members to El Salvador.

And the Department of Justice asserts that Garcia is himself a gang member. White House Press Secretary Karline Leavitt said among other things, that when he was first arrested in 2019

LEAVITT:  Garcia was also arrested with two other well-known members of the vicious MS 13 gang.

The DOJ’s assertions about his gang affiliation are contested. The department is also releasing documents that it says will show MS-13 ties.

However, Garcia has never been charged with a crime.

Leavitt added that Maryland court documents revealed today that Garcia’s wife in 2021 petitioned for an order of protection against him for alleged domestic violence.

Meantime, District Court Judge James Boasberg says he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt for not following his earlier order in the Garcia case.

Autism, RFK Jr » Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he’s determined to get to the bottom of a rise in autism cases in the U.S.

KENNEDY:  In 1987 out of 1 million, every 1 million kids, 330 were diagnosed with autism.

Today, he says the number has jumped from a few hundred cases per 1 million kids to nearly 30,000 per 1 million.

Some have pointed to more accurate diagnoses of autism as the reason for the jump. But Kennedy says with numbers like these, he’s not buying that explanation. He also argues that genetics alone cannot explain it.

KENNEDY:  We know it's an environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics. They can provide a vulnerability. Uh, you need an environmental toxin.

Kennedy says he’s commissioning a series of studies into whether mold of pesticides, food chemicals, medicines, or other factors could be to blame.

He's vowed to identify the root cause of autism by September.

Israel latest » Israel says it plans to build a buffer zone around Gaza to help prevent future terror attacks. WORLD's Christina Grube has the story:

CHRISTINA GRUBE: Israel says its military will not be leaving areas it has seized around Gaza.

That land amounts to just under 30 square miles along the borders, about one-fifth of Gaza's territory.

Instead Israel says it’s forces will remain in those areas permanently to effectively create a buffer zone around the Gaza strip.

Israel also says humanitarian aid into Gaza must be halted until there’s a way to prevent Hamas from stealing it.

For WORLD, I'm Christina Grube.

U.S. pastor rescued in S. Africa » Police in South Africa on Tuesday rescued an American pastor from a band of kidnappers after a shootout with law enforcement.

Masked men had abducted 45-year-old Josh Sullivan at gunpoint as he was preaching in the Eastern Cape province last week.

Police located the suspects in a car near a house where the pastor had been held. The suspects tried to escape and opened fire on officers as they approached. Three unnamed suspects were killed in a shootout.

Officials say Sullivan, who was also in the car, was miraculously unharmed.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a September 11th initiative is about to begin after decades of delay. Plus, how a small town cop took down a crime ring.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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