RELIGION HEADLINES

(SRN NEWS) – The Department of Education is calling on the NCAA to restore titles, awards and records that have been “misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories.” The department also sent a letter requesting the changes to the National Federation of State High School Associations.   The NCAA changed its participation policy to restrict competition in women’s sports to athletes who are actually female after President Trump signed an executive order this month.  It threatens to pull federal funding from any sports league that lets males play against females. 

Georgia’s state Senate has passed a bill that would cut off public funding for sex-change operations for adults.  However, the future of the legislation remains cloudy in the state House.  The measure would specifically bar state money for sex-change operations in state employee and university health insurance plans, Medicaid and the prison system.  A growing number of states are tackling various aspects of transgenderism as voters demand that their taxes no longer support it in health insurance or the public schools. 

More anti-Semitism in Australia.  Sydney’s Bankstown Hospital is examining its patient records after a nurse claimed online to have killed Israelis. Officials say there is no evidence of actual harm to patients.  There has been a surge in anti-Semitic activity in Australia over the past three months.  Several synagogues and other Jewish installations have been attacked in Sydney and Melbourne, where 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population lives.  Police also discovered a trailer containing explosives and a list of potential Jewish targets.  The nurse who claimed to have killed patients has been fired. 

Lawyers for South Carolina and Planned Parenthood are returning to the state’s highest court to argue how restrictive the state’s abortion ban should be. The law is being enforced in South Carolina as a ban on almost all abortions around six weeks after conception, setting that mark as the time that an unborn baby’s heartbeat can be detected.  But Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates are arguing that the 2023 law includes different definitions of a heartbeat, and that the ban should start around nine or 10 weeks.  It will likely take several months for the justices to rule.