(  )  Counter terrorism police in Britain say that the assailant in this month’s attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester that left two people dead had pledged allegiance to ISIS.  The attacker, Jihad Al-Shamie, called emergency dispatchers during his deadly attack on October 2nd to pledge his allegiance to the Muslim terror group.  Al-Shamie was shot dead by police outside the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Manchester after he rammed a car into pedestrians, attacked them with a knife and tried to force his way into the building.  Experts say ISIS remains a significant terrorist organization both operationally and inspirationally.

(  )  A North Dakota judge has upheld the state’s ban on sex-change operations for children.  District Judge Jackson Lofgren says that the law does not discriminate on the basis of sex, and there’s little evidence the state legislature passed the measure for a discriminatory purpose.  He also acknowledged that there is “an ongoing international debate regarding the safety and effectiveness of the medical procedures prohibited by the Health Care Law.”  About half of the states, nearly all of which have majority Republican governments, have banned irreversible surgeries on children for the purpose of living as the opposite sex.