HEADLINES THR 7-10-25

(SRN NEWS  )  The Center for Trans-youth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will be closing this month.  It is the country’s biggest public provider of sex-change operations and hormone replacement therapies for children.  In response to the Trump administration’s threat to cut federal funds to places that perform such interventions on kids under the age of 18, the center will be closing its doors on July 22nd. The closure comes weeks after the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that forbids doctors or hospitals from performing irreversible surgeries on children in order to help them live as the opposite sex.

(  )  Syrian Christian leaders are warning that the country’s small community of believers may decide to flee after last month’s devastating church attack.  Greek Orthodox leaders say the bombing of the Mar Elias church outside Damascus was the worst crime against Christians since 1860, when thousands were massacred within days by Muslim attackers.  Weeks after the bombing, it is still not clear who was behind it.  The government blamed ISIS, which has not claimed responsibility as it usually does.  About one third of the Christian population of Syria fled during the recent civil war and many are watching the new rebel government carefully.

(  )  Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company says that it’s taking down “inappropriate posts” made by its Grok chatbot, which appeared to include anti-Semitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler.  Grok was developed by Musk’s xAI and pitched as an alternative to rival chatbots such as Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.  Grok has reportedly shared several anti-Semitic posts, including the trope that Jews run Hollywood, and denied that such a stance could be described as Nazism.  The Anti-Defamation League called out the chatbot’s behavior.  Musk says a few users may have been trying to manipulate the software.

(  )  The Trump administration has formally filed suit against the California Department of Education for allowing males to compete on girls sports teams in schools.  The lawsuit filed by the Justice Department says California’s transgender athlete policies violate Title Nine, the federal law that bans discrimination in education based on sex. The department says California’s rules “are not only illegal and unfair but also demeaning, signaling to girls that their opportunities and achievements are secondary to accommodating boys.”  U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi warned other states that allow boys to play against girls that they could also be sued.